Lincoln Riley shares redshirt plans for USC roster

With about a month remaining in the 2024 college football season, redshirt decisions are going to start being made. And USC head coach Lincoln Riley has already given the subject some though.

With four games left to play, Riley shared there’s only one player on the edge of burning a potential redshirt by playing in a 5th game, freshman linebacker Elijah Newby. Outside of him, Riley expects the rest of the players who have played in 1, 2, or 3 games to end up redshirting.

“Not too many,” Riley said of players on the edge of redshirting. “Newby is one that we’re going to attempt to redshirt. We’ll see how the next few plays out but probably we’ll wait until postseason to play him again unless something changes. We’ve got several guys that are kind of between one and three games right now and a majority of those guys will probably attempt to redshirt.”

And Riley did note that, at this point, all of the above is a plan. Things are subject to change for a litany of reasons, and some player expecting to redshirt could be tapped to play in more games.

“Again, kind of see how this plays out and then we’ve got several that are already past the threshold so, I think Newby is the main one right now that was playing some snaps for us, mostly on special teams, that we’re going to try to hold on,” Riley said.

Riley shared a veteran lineman will be back for USC in 2025

Riley revealed Thursday that sixth-year offensive lineman Gino Quinones, who is sidelined the rest of the season, plans to return for 2025.

Riley was asked if Quinones will apply for a seventh season of eligibility.

“My understanding is he’s going to try to,” Riley said. “I mean, he’s got a year left either way, but I do know that he’s working to try to determine if that’s one or two. So we’ll see obviously how that unfolds.”

Quinones played just 21 offensive snaps this season, according to Pro Football Focus, all in a blowout win over Utah State in Week 2. He was listed as out for the season in the team’s Big Ten availability report leading up to last week’s game against Rutgers, which the Trojans won handily, 42-20.

Quinones notably suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second game of USC’s 2023 season after starting the opener against San Jose State, during which he played 42 offensive snaps, per PFF, rotated at the guard spots and even played center.