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Lincoln Riley was brazen with some of his statements at Big Ten Media Days, but he didn’t exactly inspire a ton of confidence.
At one point, he was asked if the rebuild was on, ahead, or behind schedule at USC and all he would definitively say was the Trojans weren’t behind. “They won 4 the year before, we won 19 the last 2,” Riley replied. But even though he wouldn’t say whether USC was on or ahead of “schedule,” he did hint at something that is pretty important to consider when thinking about USC’s place in the new-look Big Ten.
“We fight, scratch, and claw every single day to get it to where it’s got to be. There’s some things we were able to amend quickly and get pretty competitive pretty quickly. There’s also some things that take time no matter how hard you try or what you do,” he said. “You can’t revamp a roster and all the freshmen classes, stacking those classes, you can’t do 4 years’ worth of work in 1 year. It just can’t happen.”
The timetable for Riley’s USC rebuild no doubt looked different in the Pac-12 than it does now. Playing in the Big Ten demands different things. The conference is better at the line of scrimmage, and save for a wonderful farewell season in 2023, the Big Ten is deeper than the Pac-12 was.
Riley needs to get his young players ready faster. He needs to have a defensive line that is more stout. He needs an offensive line with more capable bodies. Scholarships 1 through 85 need to go further, and that takes years of outstanding recruiting. It’s no coincidence that 3 programs have won 9 of the 10 Big Ten titles since the East-West configuration began and those 3 programs also happen to be the only 3 in the league that signed multiple top-10 classes during that time.
For the same reasons I expect Oregon to walk into the Big Ten and compete with Ohio State immediately for the league crown, I think USC is going to struggle greatly.
From a depth standpoint, this roster isn’t there yet.
I’m fading USC in 2024.
“We didn’t take over (a program) that was a national championship contender just walking into it,” Riley told reporters in Indianapolis. “This was a revamp. This has been a rebuild from a roster standpoint.”
But on multiple occasions, Riley claimed that USC has made considerable progress.
“I think we’ve made progress in every way you can possibly measure,” he said during his breakout session with reporters. “We’re coming. We’re coming quickly.”
And, then with local media off to the side, he said: “Two years ago, look where Ohio State and Oregon were 2 years ago. Look what they took over and look what we took over. It takes time. I’m not a magician. I can’t wave a magic wand and everything just be perfect right away. But find one area we haven’t made progress. This thing’s got momentum. It’s coming, nothing’s gonna stop it.”
Riley has a more intimate knowledge of where his program is at than just about anyone, but those statements are objectively false.
USC won 11 games in 2022, Riley’s first year. USC won 8 games in 2023. USC won 8 league games in 2022 and played for a conference championship. USC won 5 league games in 2023. The Trojans won 5 of their last 7 in 2022. They won 2 of their last 7 in 2023.
Over the final 7 games last season, the offense was oft-penalized and careless with the football. As the season wound down, the ground game cratered. In a 38-20 loss to UCLA to end the regular season with 5 losses in 6 games, USC produced 3 rushing yards on 22 attempts.
The defense was such a liability that Riley was forced to fire a close friend during the season.
Optimism for USC in 2024 hinges on 2 beliefs. First, that new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn will be able to engineer a turnaround at USC that mirrors what he did at UCLA. And second, that quarterback Miller Moss will play the way he did in the Holiday Bowl over an entire season.
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On the defensive front, the line is critical. Lynn’s UCLA defense was spearheaded by first-round edge rusher Laiatu Latu, Gabriel Murphy, and Grayson Murphy swallowing ball-carriers in the backfield. Those 3 combined to produce 46.5 tackles for loss last season. USC’s entire defensive line produced 51 last fall.
Only 2 players on the USC defense had double-digit TFLs last season. One is no longer with the program. The other had 10 in the team’s first 6 games and 0.5 in the team’s final 7. Anthony Lucas, a former Texas A&M transfer, is a big name but he fell out of the rotation last season. Nate Clifton joined from the transfer portal, but he’s a 6-5, 280 defensive lineman from a bad Vanderbilt team. USC entered the spring window with a clear and obvious need on the defensive line and added only 1 player — a 282-pound nose tackle from Wyoming. Bear Alexander is probably the only proven option in the group at this point.
Could Lynn work magic? It’s possible, but there isn’t a player like Latu on the USC defense.
USC’s NIL shortcomings are working against the program in a major way here. On the heels of a top-10 class in 2023, USC signed the 20th-ranked class this past cycle. And the 2025 class has some work to do.
To the second point, Moss made his first career start against Louisville in the Holiday Bowl and threw for 372 yards with 6 touchdowns. Riley said that game was the most “together” the team played at any point during the 2023 season. It was a positive (and much-needed) way to end an otherwise disappointing year.
Before Miller Time, USC was linked to major quarterbacks in the transfer portal. After his performance, USC pivoted. Former 5-star quarterback Malachi Nelson transferred, leading many to believe Riley was seeking a starter to replace Caleb Williams. But USC instead made a depth play, adding UNLV’s Jayden Maiava from the portal. Moss is expected to start.
Louisville closed last season ranked 36th in defensive SP+. Not elite, but certainly not a pushover. USC will play 10 games this season against teams with defenses that rank 35th or better in preseason defensive SP+, including 5 of the top 10.
Moss was a top-100 recruit in the 2021 class, and he has been in Riley’s system now for 3 years. While he doesn’t have much in-game experience, he was likely a fairly comfortable successor for Riley at the quarterback spot.
There’s just no way of knowing how it will look. Riley didn’t recruit Moss. He didn’t have an Oklahoma offer coming out of high school. And the offense will have to evolve after it was so heavily influenced by Caleb Williams’ skill these last 2 years.
USC is moving its left tackle to center, replacing its starting right tackle, and sorting through an offensive line that has only 5 upperclassmen.
There are too many questions here.
Not the least of which is how USC will actually navigate this schedule. Riley has already publicly put the Notre Dame game on the chopping block — another hint at where this team is. The Trojans will play on truncated prep weeks twice — against Utah State on Sept. 7 and against Rutgers on Oct. 25.
The Rutgers game comes after a cross-country trip to Maryland and it’ll be the sixth game in as many weeks for the Trojans. The following week, they travel to Seattle to face Washington.
USC has a neutral site game against LSU. DraftKings has the Tigers as an early 6-point favorite. USC opens Big Ten play in Ann Arbor against Michigan. DraftKings has the Wolverines as a 9.5-point favorite. Penn State is a 4-point favorite in Los Angeles on Oct. 12. Notre Dame is a 3.5-point favorite in Los Angeles on Nov. 30.
Rutgers is a situational trap game. Nebraska (Nov. 16) is a trap game because the Huskers’ defense is just really good. If USC starts its season 3-3, the discourse surrounding Riley in particular will be interesting to monitor. The remaining schedule:
- Oct. 19: at Maryland
- Oct. 25: Rutgers
- Nov. 2: at Washington
- Nov. 16: Nebraska
- Nov. 23: at UCLA
- Nov. 30: Notre Dame
Most of the major books have USC’s season win total set at 7.5. And almost all of them have action on the under. DraftKings, however, currently has +105 odds on the under and I’m jumping on that.
ESPN’s FPI says there’s a 23.3% chance USC fails to win 6 games. Bettors can get USC under 6 wins at +230 odds at DraftKings, or exactly 6 wins at +360 odds.
ESPN Bet also has a head-to-head total with Oklahoma at -130 to have more regular-season wins than USC, which feels like a pretty safe wager.
USC is in a better place now than it was before Riley took over the program, but to enter into the program’s first season in the Big Ten with serious questions along both sides of the line of scrimmage is dangerous. I don’t believe the Trojans will be in the conference title discussion, and I see them more likely in the 5-7 win range.
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Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
