It is no secret that USC’s 2024 season under Lincoln Riley has not gone according to plan. After another frustrating loss on Saturday, the Trojans now sit at 4-5 and need to win two of their final three games just to make a bowl game.
It feels like a decade ago that USC won 11 games in Lincoln Riley’s 2022 debut season. Following the loss, former USC quarterback Max Browne argued that in hindsight, the 2022 success is largely responsible for USC’s 2024 failures.
“In hindsight, the 2022 season was the worst thing for USC,” Browne said in a tweet following the game.
“Gave the program the illusion the right foundation was being built in Year 1 reaching the Cotton Bowl. Instead, it was because of a super human QB and set an ‘all star’ transfer portal identity into the team.
“Most programs in Year 1 take their lumps, but use it to establish a foundation of grit, physicality, and toughness.
“If you don’t establish that mentality in Year 1, it’s extremely difficult to change course because if you all the sudden become a hardass in Year 2, you run the risk of losing your locker room as it comes across inauthentic.”
The “super human QB” that Browne is referring to is, of course, Caleb Williams. USC’s 2022 success was largely based around Williams being Superman on the football field and constantly bailing out his team. Because USC was winning with Williams’ heroics at the time, however, they failed to establish an identity of toughness and physicality.
Now, with Williams no longer around to erase USC’s mistakes, the team’s lack of toughness is being exposed. Despite being in the third year of the Lincoln Riley era, it feels like the Trojans are in the first year of a rebuild.
When you are paying your head coach as much as USC is paying Riley, that simply is not acceptable.