Musings from Arledge: Drawing conclusions about the 2024 USC Trojans

For a brief moment, I thought it might really happen. I thought that the Coliseum ghosts might just rise up and ruin Notre Dame’s season. But then reality set in, and the familiar pattern took hold: USC played hard, stayed in the game, and then a devastating turnover ends the dream.

I don’t think I’ve ever followed a team that had so many late-game, back-breaking interceptions. I can say with confidence that it isn’t fun. 

I will also concede that the first pick-six was an amazing play by the corner. Yes, it was underthrown and probably wasn’t thrown with enough juice to be a good back-shoulder fade. But that was one hell of a play by the corner. Seasons are often made by players making a huge play just when their team needs it. That happened for Notre Dame yesterday.

Let’s try to draw some tentative conclusions from what was one of the most disappointing football seasons I can remember. 

Let’s start with this: USC’s fans are awful. That was a terrible turnout for the biggest rivalry in college football and a top-five opponent. The seats were empty, and the empty seats were louder than most of the fans. I know this is LA, and I know LA fans are fickle. But this is embarrassing. It hurts the team by depriving them of the home-field advantage that almost every opponent has at their place, and it hurts recruiting. Lincoln Riley is clearly frustrated, and while I think his performance isn’t any better than the fans’, he’s right. USC needs to think seriously about what it can do to jumpstart a better game experience. The kids may like the DJ, but he’s not getting anybody else involved. Something needs to be done. The half-empty, quiet-as-a-library first quarter yesterday made me sad and angry.

As for the team, it’s much easier to win a football game when you’re bigger, stronger, and better in the trenches. That’s not a new insight, but it’s the heart of a successful program. USC’s offensive line made strides over the course of the season, and I think Josh Henson deserves credit for that. But in year three of Lincoln Riley’s tenure, USC should not to be forced to play two very young guys and one guy out of position, and this was the primary reason USC was 6-6 this year. It’s true that USC would have won at least 10 games with Caleb Williams on the roster this year. But even with the devastating picks, I’m not sure quarterback play was the biggest problem. An offense that only works when you have an overall number-one pick at quarterback is no offense at all. Miller Moss and Jayden Maiava are both pretty good college quarterbacks. A successful program must have an offense that can perform with guys like that. You can’t win only when you have a superstar under center.

It did not help that Lincoln Riley insists on putting so much on his quarterbacks. Riley insists on smashing that square peg into the round hole. This USC offense was pretty good running the ball. As dominant as Notre Dame’s running game was yesterday, USC averaged more yards per carry than the Irish: 7.0 to 6.8. When he was hired, I thought Lincoln Riley was the one coach from the Air Raid tree that really understood and valued the running game—not as a change of pace so you can get back to throwing the ball but as a way to dominate and demoralize the defense. Well, guess not. We’re still looking for the Mike Leach disciple who sees football that way. We may be looking for a long time.

USC played hard all season. The players and coaches deserve credit for that. They played hard even when they didn’t play well. That’s important, and it’s important to the future of the program. The reality is that USC has very little top-end talent. They have some good players on both sides of the ball. But the older guys are not elite talents, and the young guys still have to be developed if they’re going to be elite talents. You don’t win the Big 10 or make the playoffs without an elite roster. USC doesn’t have one. (Except at punter, I suppose.) I’m willing to give Lincoln Riley the benefit of the doubt—despite the fact that this is year three—just because I know USC wasn’t engaging in NIL the way its competitors were. I don’t hold a manager responsible for being unable to hire an elite workforce when his competitors are offering double the pay; that’s stupid. But it’s also stupid to give a coach a $100,000,000+ contract and not pay for the roster. We’re told USC has made great strides in NIL. They better have. This program cannot afford another mediocre recruiting class.

I was wrong about USC’s receiving corps. I thought the four sophs would make a big jump this year and be an elite unit. Instead, they may have been the weakest unit on the offense, and if we’re judging them on production versus talent, they are easily the worst unit on the offense. Makai Lemon is the only one developing the way you’d expect a five-star recruit to develop. We’ve seen flashes from the others, but there’s no consistency and, often, no fire. 

Duce Robinson is amazingly talented. And way too passive. Fight for the ball! Fight through the defensive back to earn that pass interference call! Ja’Kobi Lane is also immensely talented. Does he want to be great? He’ll simply disappear for long stretches, and I just don’t know if the desire matches the talent level. And Zachariah Branch is teetering on the brink of becoming a liability. The explosion and elusiveness we saw early last year is nowhere to be found. He makes bad decisions in the kick game, and he is completely unreliable as a wide receiver. 

And none of these guys block worth a damn. That Lincoln Riley continues to throw behind the line of scrimmage to the wideouts just so they can get blasted by defensive backs for a loss almost every single time is stunning. I’m no offensive genius. But if something fails over and over all year, maybe it’s time to put that card back in the deck. 

I don’t know what the position coaches are doing. We don’t see games or practices. But the development of this group of wide receivers has been a bitter disappointment. If Riley is going to insist on being a pass first, pass second, pass third kind of offense, he better find somebody to coach these guys who can mine their talent.

USC’s front seven on defense isn’t very talented. And just about all the talent exists in the young guys who aren’t ready to dominate yet. The defensive coaching staff has done a very good job with these guys. They play hard, and they play above their skill level. But without Eric Gentry, Anthony Lucas, and Bear Alexander, this is a well-below-average defensive front for a Big Ten team. USC must close strong with the big names in this recruiting class, they need the young guys to grow up fast, and they must spend some real money in the transfer portal. You can’t win big with a team that can’t rush the passer and a linebacking crew that, without Gentry, doesn’t have a single playmaker. The talent difference between Notre Dame’s backs and USC’s linebackers was stark. I trust the defensive staff. I’m hoping I can trust the NIL game. 

USC started this offseason with the goal of getting bigger, stronger, and more physical. It’s clear now that they’re not there yet. USC is still too small and still not physically dominant. This is a a 6-6 team for a reason. It’s modestly talented and, especially offensively, very little seems to be special about the coaching. USC overhauled the defensive coaching staff last year. Riley did that very well. USC has apparently began the overhaul of the NIL program. That is, in many ways, the key to the program. Oregon is number one because they have the most resources to build a roster. There is no other reason. We may not love that, but it’s what college football is. USC can play the NIL game as well as Oregon and Ohio State or it can be a second-tier program going forward. Those are the options. It sounds like the people in charge understand that.

Now there is one more overhaul project to be done, and it’s the one that Lincoln Riley will find most challenging and which he is least likely to want to take on. It’s time to overhaul the offense and the offensive staff. Lincoln Riley’s offense was a mess this year. Sure, part of that was personnel. But not all of it. Lincoln Riley gets great credit for being a quarterback developer; it’s a well-earned reputation, and it’s critical in today’s college football, where quarterback play is more important than ever. But a program can’t be successful offensively only when it has the best quarterback in the country. Lots of offensive coaches can move the ball and score points with Caleb Williams, Jalen Hurts, Kyler Murray, etc. Lincoln Riley needs to re-think his running game and his commitment to it. He needs to revisit whether this staff is developing his players. He needs to make some big decisions on the offensive side. His career depends upon it.

Nobody expected Lincoln Riley to be 8-5 and 6-6 in season two and three. (Well, some Oklahoma fans seemed to expect it.) Riley is still a young coach. He’s not dumb. We’ll see if he has the ability to make the changes that need to be made. Some of them will be painful, and Lincoln Riley has shown a stubborn streak that should give everybody pause. There can’t be more than five coaches in the country that would have stuck with the incompetent Alex Grinch for as long as Riley did. We should keep that in mind when talking about Riley’s ability to identify problems, make adjustments, and fix his program. I’m skeptical. But he’s our guy for the foreseeable future, so I see no point in doing anything other than hoping that he’ll do what needs to be done. 

As always, Fight On. And let’s hope for a big signing day. We need it.