Former USC QB offers perspective on Trojans’ tough season

Former USC quarterback Max Browne talks about the process the Trojans need to follow in order to restore the toughness they have lost.

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.

Former USC quarterback Max Browne explains why USC QBs struggle in the NFL

Max Browne has opinions. See what you think about them.

Former USC Trojan quarterback Max Browne was Gatorade National Player of the Year and one of the best high school quarterbacks in Washington state history. He started his own podcast “The Max Browne Podcast.” He now works with the Pac-12 Network as an announcer. He discussed why, in his view, USC quarterbacks struggle in the NFL.

Is this a real thing? If considering Matt Leinart and Matt Barkley as examples, it would be true that USC quarterbacks struggle in the NFL. Sam Darnold has struggled in the NFL more because he has played for terrible organizations than anything else. Carson Palmer definitely did not struggle in the NFL. Mark Sanchez didn’t have a great career, but he made multiple AFC Championship Game appearances. In older decades, Rodney Peete and Sean Salisbury had decent if unspectacular NFL careers.

At any rate, you can consider Max Browne’s views and overall NFL-USC analysis in this clip below:

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