Lincoln Riley facing now or never moment with USC football | Opinion

They’ve given Lincoln Riley anything he has wanted at USC, everything to pull one of the top three programs in college football from the abyss of apathy.

Yet there were the Trojans last weekend, escaping Piscataway, N.J., after staving off the never-quit program that is big, bad Rutgers.

The same Rutgers that two weeks earlier lost to MAC afterthought UMass — by sixteen — on that very field. 

“Listen, we’re not going to take road wins for granted in this league,” Riley said.

My god, what has happened to USC football? 

It wasn’t that long ago when Pete Carroll had it rolling, when Los Angeles embraced USC and the rest of college football feared the mighty Trojans. Which is pretty much what it should be. 

One of the greatest cities in America, and a college football team that strutted right along side it. The glam, the glitz, the glory.

Now reduced to acting like Rutgers is the second-coming of Ohio State. 

“They’re all hard,” Riley said of Big Ten road games, not long after deciphering the how and why of giving up 35 points to Rutgers and leaving with a one-possession victory.

So it should come as no surprise that we’ve reached a crossroads moment for Riley at USC. No more speeches about building the right way, or finding a way to close out games, or being one or two plays away.

Oregon rolls into the Coliseum on Saturday, and an underachieving Ducks team is one loss from serious damage to its national title hopes. They should’ve lost to Boise State, lost to Oklahoma State as a massive favorite, and last weekend beat what amounts to a Portland high school.

This thing sets up perfectly. The Ducks are teetering, and USC is in position to prove its bonafides under Riley. To finally show how money, support and patience will pay off ― instead of leaving USC holding a bag of junk bonds.

USC gave Riley a $100-plus million dollar contract at the end of the 2021 season to leave Oklahoma, and big money donors have since thrown tens of millions in private NIL money at the program. The university recently completed a $200 million, 163,000 square-foot football facility that has no peers in all of football — college or the NFL.

Riley narrated a two-minute promotional video for the facility, at one point proclaiming it was, “designed to make greatness inevitable.”

And this, everyone, is the problem. 

You know why Simpson and Garrett, and Munoz and Boselli, and Leinart and Bush were great? Why USC won all of those Pac-12 and national titles and Heisman Trophies, and had all of those first-round NFL draft picks?

Because nothing is inevitable. When it's given instead of earned, you’re fighting off lowly Rutgers in the fourth quarter. Or losing to Maryland.

You’re 6-13 in games against ranked teams, and losing to Tulane in the Cotton Bowl despite having the better team, and the best player on the field.

You can’t recruit a Top 10 recruiting class’s despite a geographic footprint in the heart of one of the most talented areas in the nation for high school football — and, you know, you’re USC.

So when Riley finally landed a consensus Top 10 class — the No.1 overall class, no less — in February, he built some momentum and it was somewhat easier to choke down another season without a College Football Playoff appearance, and without beating Notre Dame.

Until no one showed up for the season opener against San Jose State, and the excuse was the September heat in L.A. The same heat USC dealt with nearly two decades earlier under Carroll, and got 93,000 fans in the Coliseum.

Or until Rutgers converted a 4th-and-20 fake punt from its 16, and the next thing you know, Riley's just happy to get out alive from another Big Ten road game.

I mean, what are we doing here, people?

If ever there were a moment for Riley to prove his worth at USC, for his team to show clear and unambiguous success and momentum, it’s now. A loaded offense, a Heisman candidate quarterback, another new defensive coordinator with an impressive track record. 

And an Oregon team that’s as vulnerable as it has ever been under coach Dan Lanning. 

Earlier this summer at Big Ten Media Days, Riley said this USC team was “more equipped at any point in the previous few years” to win games of significance. 

“That’s not a hope or wish,” he said. “Those are facts.”

So was fighting off Rutgers in a one-possession game. 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.