The Athletic offers harsh assessment of Lincoln Riley, USC football

USC’s 42-27 loss to Oregon last week eliminated the Trojans from Big Ten and College Football Playoff contention. USC still has the Crosstown Showdown rivalry matchup against UCLA this Saturday evening, as well as a bowl game. After that, however, Lincoln Riley and the Trojans will shift their attention to 2026 as they try to finally take the next step as a program.

What is the current national perception of USC as the Trojans wind down their 2025 campaign? In a recent story, Stewart Mandel of The Athletic offered a rather harsh assessment.

“While 8-3 USC was not expected to win at Autzen Stadium, the loss served as a reminder of just how underwhelming Lincoln Riley’s tenure has been,” Mandel wrote. “The Trojans have not defeated a ranked team on the road since Riley’s first season, in 2022. While they still have a chance to get to 10 wins, with woeful rival UCLA up next week and a bowl game, their season will likely end in the Alamo Bowl. Riley’s biggest calling card right now is that he’s sitting on the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class for 2026. Otherwise, the program just feels kind of irrelevant.”

To call USC football “irrelevant” feels a bit extreme. After all, the Trojans were just featured on College GameDay, and more than five million people watched Saturday’s game against Oregon. No matter how much USC struggles on the field, the program is still a blue blood with a high-profile head coach. If nothing else, we will be seeing some Oklahoma fans tune in each week just to hate watch the Trojans.

But for the fourth year in a row under Riley, USC will neither win a conference title nor make the College Football Playoff. While this season has been a step in the right direction after a disastrous 2023 and 2024, Mandel is correct in that the Trojans still have a way to go in terms of getting to where they want to be as a program.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: The Athletic criticizes Lincoln Riley, USC football program