Lincoln Riley reveals season-ending injury for Zion Branch

On Tuesday, the USC Trojans head coach, Lincoln Riley, delivered some crushing news regarding one of the top players of this year’s defensive unit. Freshman safety Zion Branch is now out after undergoing a procedure.

“Yeah, he’s gonna be out for the season; (he) had a procedure done this morning,” said Riley. “So, I hate it for him, (his) first start. Just terrible luck, but that kid is so headstrong and so positive and driven; he’ll come back way stronger from it.

“He obviously had to come in here and earn the starting free safety job here at USC; as a freshman, it’s a pretty big deal. So we are pleased is probably not the right word with his progress; it was way better than that throughout the year… so it will sting for this team to lose him. And I will have to uplift him, but he is a strong cat, and he’s going to be a great player here.”

The injury suffered by Branch and the type of procedure required to remedy the issue has yet to be revealed. Still, this is a significant blow to the Trojans’ defense, which has already struggled mightily in 2023.

Washington vs. USC point spread: Picking Huskies vs. Trojans

Washington heads to LA for a massive Pac-12 battle this weekend between the reigning Heisman Trophy winner in USC‘s Caleb Williams, and the current favorite to win this year’s trophy in Michael Penix Jr.

The undefeated Huskies are 3.5-point betting favorites at home, and the two high-scoring offenses have set the over/under total at 75.5. On3’s Andy Staples called on the services of college football analyst Dan Rubenstein to help decide what he might bet on this Washington-USC game this weekend.

“Washington is a fascinating team. I think this might be kind of a semi-clash of overrated versus underrated,” Rubenstein told Staples. “I think Washington might be a little bit overrated and I think USC might be a little bit underrated. The very real questions and accusations and finger-pointing at the kind of jokey elements of USC is defense — very well founded. All true, all correct. They’re terrible against the run. They’re terrible at tackling, they’re terrible at filling lanes. They’re not built to build a wall and be stout up front.