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It’s always something with this guy.
A sloppy showing against winless Rutgers was dismised as the perils of playing on the road.
A loss to Oregon and its backup quarterback was shrugged off as falling short against a superb team.
A comeback against a Washington team down to its fourth-string running back was hailed as some sort of galvanizing moment.
The warning signs were there, the evidence was impossible to ignore and now all the B.S. has caught up with USC coach Lincoln Riley.
His team isn’t going anywhere meaningful in 2026.
In Year 5, with a gleaming new practice facility, a third defensive coordinator and all the resources any college football coach could possibly desire, his Trojans have gone splat again.
When is this guy going to simply admit he’s simply not getting it done at an acceptable level given all the patience and investment lavished upon him?
The end of USC’s season basically came Saturday, after the No. 16 Trojans’ latest letdown resulted in a 24-7 loss to Wisconsin that gave them a second defeat with four games to go.
Go ahead and consider Camp Randall Stadium the place where USC’s season went to die. At 6-2 overall and 3-2 in the Big Ten, the Trojans are in seventh place in the conference standings.
A team that cannot afford another loss and make the College Football Playoff now must run the table against a remaining schedule that includes three top-10 teams – Ohio State, Indiana and UCLA.
There’s no spinning his way out of this mess, though Riley certainly tried.
There were plenty of failures to weed through Saturday after USC scored the fewest points of any team RIley has led in his 10 seasons as a head coach.
Four times, the Trojans crossed midfield and didn’t score. They tried a 58-yard field goal … that predictably fell well short. They rushed for minus-17 yards after spending previous weeks talking about how much untapped potential remained in the run game.
While he accepted some responsibility, saying he didn’t coach well enough and made some bad calls, he also sounded a characteristically defiant tone.
“This is the same team that played a way different brand of football at Penn State two weeks ago and we’re very capable of doing it again in the coming weeks,” Riley told reporters in Madison. “But we’ve got to do it and it’s going to take all of us together – coaches and players – and that’s what we’ll do.
Where to start?
First of all, everybody’s playing a winning brand of football against Penn State. The Nittany Lions are winless in the Big Ten and hardly a measuring stick for competent teams.
What made the performance against the Badgers all the more confounding was that it came after a bye week. Of course, Riley had an excuse for that as well.
“Whether you have seven days to prepare or 14 days to prepare, you’ve still got to go execute in these moments,” Riley said. “You’ve got to take care of the ball, you’ve got to get off the field on third down, you’ve got to not give up second-and-19 pass interferences … you’ve got to make field goals. I’m disappointed.”
The big question is how disappointed his bosses are.
Assuming the Trojans don’t make the CFP at a time when USC billboards around town proclaim “The Time is Now,” will athletic director Jen Cohen and the USC Board of Trustees cut the cord? Do they want to commit the roughly $70 million it would take to buy out Riley – not to mention the many additional millions for the rest of his staff? Can they land someone who’s better?
Some have playfully suggested that Riley needs only one more year to make the CFP considering the likelihood of its field expanding to 24 teams – which some have dubbed the Lincoln Riley Act in a jab at his never having qualified with the Trojans.
Adding pressure is the job that coach Bob Chesney is doing across town. In Year 1, at a school known more for Nobel Laureates than Heisman Trophy winners, Chesney has unbeaten UCLA in prime position for a CFP run – while handling two of the teams that have beaten the Trojans.
Meanwhile, Riley was using a rash of upsets Saturday as reason to believe his team still had something to play for in what’s shaping up as a lost season.
“There’s a lot of teams getting beat, a lot of teams getting beat on the road and the toughest teams and the teams that can battle back from losses or tough moments like this are the ones who are going to be the ones standing at the end,” Riley said. “I have a lot of confidence in our team and in our guys that when we’re at our best, we can beat anybody.”
Enough with the excuses.
Hey, Lincoln, it’s late October and your team still hasn’t beaten anybody. What do you have to say about that?