USC Football: Lincoln Riley's Defensive Expectations For Last Regular Season Game

Should we care?

Your USC Trojans football program has been plagued by a miserable defense all year, to the point where defensive coordinator Alex Grinch didn't make it through the end of the 2023 season.

The team kicked off the year with actual expectations of College Football Playoff and Pac-12 Championship appearances. Things have fallen apart over the last five weeks, during which time USC has gone 1-4 and completely slid out of the Associated Press' top 25.

Just because USC's season is more or less meaningless now (they'll still secure some tier of bowl game, presumably), that doesn't mean Cardinal and Gold head coach Lincoln Riley intends to stop guiding the club's defense, per Ryan Kartje of The Los Angeles Times.

“I expect us to take a major step forward this weekend, I do,” Riley said. “Plain and simple.”

Riley arrived in town following five stellar years with the Oklahoma Sooners, with whom he posted a cumulative 55-10 record and appeared in Rose, Orange, Peach, Cotton and Alamo Bowls, winning the Cotton Bowl game in 2020. 

He led USC to an 11-3 record last year and a Cotton Bowl appearance, while star then-sophomore quarterback Caleb Williams won a Heisman Trophy. It was a promising start, but the club has since regressed. His long-term fate is looking murky the more this losing stretch continues.

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