USC football is running out time to qualify for a bowl game

SEATTLE – Lincoln Riley, as he has professed repeatedly, is no fan of this current redshirt system in collegiate football. Take one look at USC’s record and roster, and it’s easy to see why: suddenly the Trojans’ coach and staff have been forced to decide whether to stash a handful of underclassmen in the wings or toss them into the fire, as USC looks ahead to 2025.

Look at true freshman Elijah Newby, for example, a promising linebacker out of Connecticut who has played four games this season on special teams. In Riley’s ideal world, USC could have trotted Newby out for some run against Nebraska or UCLA or Notre Dame – but it would mean burning a year of eligibility.

“We’ll see how the next few plays out,” Riley said Thursday, “but probably will wait until postseason to play him again, unless something changes.”

It was a built-in assumption, because Riley has never known different, a coach who has played in the postseason every year since he took over a head coaching gig at Oklahoma in 2017.

But the question is: Will USC reach a bowl game?

The reality of a December without football would be devastating, for a season that began in Las Vegas with such optimism. It would hurt a rapidly declining fanbase morale. Since Pete Carroll took over at USC in 2001, even in the darkest days that followed his era, the Trojans have missed a bowl game (outside of NCAA-sanctioned seasons and the 2020 pandemic) just twice in the previous 13 seasons. Regardless of the breaks that haven’t fallen USC’s way this season, regardless of a host of head-scratching decisions from Big Ten referees, it would be a result that would fall far short of expectations given Riley’s $10-million-plus annual salary.

And yet it has become quite possible after USC mounted a third-quarter comeback in Seattle on Saturday night – only to fall to Washington 26-21 in the same patterns that have shaped one of the more confounding seasons in program memory.

“The biggest key for us, growing both this year and in the future is – when you get the ability and the opportunity, I should say, to separate in these games,” Riley said on Saturday night. “That’s what you’ve got to do.”

The Trojans are 4-5, and 2-5 in the Big Ten, just a rung over Maryland, Rutgers and Purdue. NCAA bowl eligibility dictates a team must win six games to qualify, meaning USC would need to win two out of its next three matchups: Nebraska at the Coliseum Nov. 16, UCLA at the Rose Bowl Nov. 23, Notre Dame at the Coliseum Nov. 30.

After Saturday night’s loss, Riley called USC’s 2024 slate “far and away” the toughest schedule he has played in his three seasons. It looked a lot peachier, though, a few weeks ago, after USC’s win over Wisconsin in late September. The Trojans have now lost four of five and none of their next three can be considered a gimme.

Notre Dame presents the stiffest test, a matchup that looks brutal for USC on paper, as the eighth-ranked Fighting Irish will wield an offense that boasts the sixth highest average yards per rush in the country against a Trojans run-defense missing some key playmakers.

Nebraska looked a heck of a lot more difficult earlier in the season before a recent three-game losing skid and an ineffectual offense, but they still gave fourth-ranked Ohio State a run for its money a couple weeks ago. And cross-town foe UCLA, the butt of jokes nationwide ever since head coach DeShaun Foster described his team as “in LA” at July’s Big Ten Media Days, has found some offensive momentum on a two-game win streak.

“Obviously, we still have a lot left on this table,” USC center Jonah Monheim said postgame Saturday night.

The good news: USC will enter a much-needed bye week with a chance to reset and a hopeful bill of good health after a rash of injuries. It is unlikely, though, that Riley will make any massive personnel moves. Even as quarterback Miller Moss has thrown nine interceptions in his last seven games, USC’s head coach said he didn’t expect to find snaps for backup Jayden Maiava.

So, USC will need to find something – something the Trojans have shown only briefly this season – within themselves, in order to reach a bowl game.