Student Body Right. USC used to be the college football program known for rearing back and slamming the ball at the opposition with a hard-nosed running game.
Mike Garrett. O.J. Simpson. Sam Cunningham. Anthony Davis. Ricky Bell. Charles White. Marcus Allen. Great running backs, those who won the Heisman Trophy and those who didn’t, made USC the elite running back school in college football for more than a decade and a half from the mid-1960s through the early 1980s.
Today, the Trojans are operating in a new world. College football is governed by the forward pass, not handoffs or toss plays. Scoring big and scoring quickly are the new mode of transportation in the sport. This is not John McKay’s or Bear Bryant’s realm anymore.
USC, under Lincoln Riley, has very quickly built a new identity. What was “Student Body Right” still uses the running game, but the Trojans are now part of a modern reality: USC is now Quarterback University.
“QB U” for short.
Caleb Williams’ Heisman Trophy affirmed that identity, as did the recruitment of Malachi Nelson and the hire of Kliff Kingsbury.
Keep in mind that Jalen Hurts recently visited Riley on the USC campus before he inked his record-setting deal with the Philadelphia Eagles.
USC’s football brand is now closely tied to quarterback recruitment and development. This is not 1978 anymore … except for the part about USC being nationally and annually relevant.
Consider the names and stories which are now part of QB U, another name for USC: