USC Football: Las Vegas releases early point spreads for 5 games on Trojans schedule

Year One of the Lincoln Riley Era at USC will get underway in a couple months, but Las Vegas oddsmakers wasted no time in getting early point spreads together. Oddsmakers released five point spreads throughout the Trojans’ 2022 season.

USC opens the year against Rice before heading to Stanford for a Pac-12 rivalry game. Other big games on the schedule include a showdown with Utah, a Veteran’s Day game vs. Colorado, a road matchup with UCLA and the Rivalry Week game against Notre Dame at The Coliseum.

Here are the five games Las Vegas lists for USC as training camp approaches fast.

Sept. 10: USC (-11.5) at Stanford
Oct. 15: USC (-3) at Utah
Nov. 11: Colorado at USC (-21.5)
Nov. 19: USC (-6) at UCLA
Nov. 26: Notre Dame at USC (-2.5)

How Lincoln Riley turned around USC’s roster this offseason

USC hired Riley away from Oklahoma after the 2021 regular season, and he got to work revamping the roster in short time. He got busy in the transfer portal, notably landing former Sooners quarterback Caleb Williams and former Pittsburgh wide receiver Jordan Addison — the No. 1 and No. 2 players to enter the portal this offseason, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings.

But Williams and Addison weren’t the only high-profile transfer additions. The Trojans also brought in three more of On3’s top-40 transfers: former Oklahoma wide receiver Mario Williams, former Oregon running back Travis Dye and former Colorado cornerback Mekhi Blackmon.

That also doesn’t account for the high school recruits coming in, highlighted by Five Star Plus+ cornerback Domani Jackson. Jackson was ranked as the No. 6 player in the nation from the class of 2022, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

That’s led to heightened expectations around the Trojans and Las Vegas previously listed their over-under win total at 8.5 wins for the 2022 campaign.