Big Ten Football Preview: Can the USC Trojans Rebound in 2025?

USC lost five games in its first Big Ten season. Coach Lincoln Riley seeks a turnaround in Year 2.

USC head coach Lincoln Riley speaks to the media during Big Ten Football Media Days in Las Vegas. | Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

The pivot point of Penn State's 2024 football season also happened to be the turning point of USC's. The fourth-ranked Nittany Lions stunned the Trojans 33-30 in overtime, getting a star-making game from tight end Tyler Warren and a hero-making kick from walk-on Ryan Barker. Penn State and USC won't play during the regular season, but the Trojans still loom large in the conference.

Head coach Lincoln Riley enters Year 2 in the Big Ten with a relatively new starting quarterback, UNLV transfer Jayden Maiava, and perhaps some heat. USC went 7-6 last year but 4-5 in the Big Ten. What to expect from the Trojans this season? Here's what Riley said at Big Ten Football Media Days.

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On his team: It's great to be back here at the beginning of the season, a season that we're very, very much anticipating. Year two in the Big Ten and so much within the walls right now of USC football.
I give a lot of credit to our administration, to Jen Cohen, our athletic director and all the support around our football program because it's very apparent that USC is extremely serious about making this football program and returning it back to being one of the greats in college football. You can see that investment level really all the way across our program.

The excitement that comes with that, the anticipation, the opportunity is real, and I think we all feel it. There's so many signs of that right now. A lot has been made of our recruiting class here coming up in the '26 class, which we're extremely proud of and excited about. This staff that we've been able to put together, adding some key figures on the field like Coach Rob Ryan, certainly the off-the-field changes that we've made with Chad Bowden and the recruiting staff, our personnel staff has made a great impact on our program already. We're a handful of months from moving into what I know will be one of the preeminent football facilities in college football, and it's going to be a major thing for our program.

I think with our current team seeing how our roster has evolved on all sides, especially defensively after the huge improvements that we made a year ago, the depth, the championship-caliber depth that started to be established across the board is something that we all have worked hard for. It's been a long journey to work towards that point, but it's pretty exciting to watch unfold right now.

The @uscfb-Notre Dame rivalry is one of the greatest in the sport.

Lincoln Riley shares his thoughts on the historic series 👇#B1GFootball pic.twitter.com/wQ59Z2ENYY

— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) July 24, 2025

QUESTION: You've obviously had tremendous success with the transfer portal and bringing in players, but how do you feel like your core high school recruits have developed and are ready to take that next step to bring USC back to prominence?

LINCOLN RILEY: Good question. I think for us it's the answer is more it's gone in phases. For us year one when we walked in the door, we felt like we needed to use the transfer portal in a big way to kind of, quote/unquote, shock the system, to get the roster where it was competitive and try to create some belief and excitement and momentum early.

We landed on a bunch of the right guys in the transfer portal year one. The team came together, caught fire, honestly probably played a little bit over our head, but I think the belief and momentum was established.

We went heavy again in the portal in year two, I think trying to capitalize on that, which was probably the toughest decision, the one we went back and forth on the most, and one that if you asked me maybe my biggest regret up to this point, that's probably it.

Because I think we all knew deep down, long-term that when you are at USC, the core I think values and I think the core beliefs in terms of how you build a program is always going to start from your high school recruiting specifically in Los Angeles and in Southern California and branching out all over the country. Then your ability to develop that and then supplementing it at times with the portal.

That's where we want to be long-term. It's where we've always wanted to be long-term, and I think that's why you're seeing us recruiting the way that we have in the last year and a half. It's really gone to another level, and we're really excited about it.

With that, building a staff like we have, we have Super Bowl champions. We have guys that have accomplished just about everything that you can in the game already that are a part of our staff. I mean, some of the best coaches in ball, we're fortunate to have those guys with us. When you combine that talent with the ability that we have to develop, you start to see why there's so much excitement within the walls right now.

QUESTION: What do you see from Jayden [Maiava] as far as transferring from UNLV and going there to Southern Cal, how he has matured, and what you expect from him this year?

LINCOLN RILEY: Really proud of Jayden. He started four games for us last year, all four against good football teams. All four against really good defenses. He gave us a chance to win all four. We were able to pick off three of them. Made some huge plays, made some unbelievable plays in those games. Showed a lot of resiliency, a lot of toughness.

His arm talent, the decisiveness in which he plays and how he sees things is really unique and has a chance to be really special. We've really focused in on I think two big areas this offseason. I think him continuing to find his voice as a leader, which he's really grown and I think matured and really become more comfortable with. Then I think the second for him, like a lot of young quarterbacks that we've had that ended up being pretty solid players, is making sure that your mistakes, you know, don't kill us.

As a quarterback, a lot of times it's, yes, you want to have the great plays, but how bad are your bad plays, right? If your bad plays are incompletions or throw-aways or occasionally taking a sack, like, you can still win with that.

I think his maturity as a player and understanding that I think will all but grow because once he harnesses that, you saw what this guy did against some pretty good groups. He's got a chance to be a really, really special player. It's been fun to work with him. He's humble, a really hard worker, and has the respect of everybody in our building.