USC's Lincoln Riley Reveals Solution for College Football Calendar

The USC Trojans finished the 2025 regular season with a 29-10 win over the rival UCLA Bruins over the weekend. USC is now 9-3 and will await their next opponent in bowl season. Trojans coach Lincoln Riley made his final weekly appearance on Trojans Live.

Riley gave his opinion on how the college football calendar should be structured amidst the coaching movement currently happening before the sport's postseason.

What Lincoln Riley Said

USC Trojans Lincoln Riley College Football Playoff UCLA Bruins Lane Kiffin Jayden Maiava Lake McRee Los Angeles Coliseum — Nov 29, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Southern California Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley reacts after the game against the UCLA Bruins at United Airlines Field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

On Idea For College Football Calendar

“There's only…in my opinion one way to fix all of this and you have to you got to have the national championship game somewhere around Christmas to New Year's. That's the only way it's going to work because you got three things that are competing right now.”

“You have high schools finishing their year, signing day, the high school calendar. You have college academic calendars and people getting in and out. You have semesters and quarter systems and you got all different calendars there and then you have a college football season and then you have the differing roster decisions that are having to happen, but the hard thing is like this isn't professional.”

“Professional league, you end the season, you make all the rules where you do all the stuff after. It’s easy because you don't have anything else competing here you're trying to balance things. Like to me, that's the only way that it's ever going to get fixed is you got to move the national championship game and obviously you're going to have to make adjustments to a season to be able to play out a full season and or do you reduce games? I mean, I people are going to have to figure that out.”

“But like this will not get fixed until that happens. Like you're going to always sacrifice something until that happens and that'll be for the decision makers to make.”

Program Outlook After 9-3 Finish

“I think a lot of the areas that we targeted, that we wanted to get better going into this year. You saw that come to fruition. A team that was able to win a lot of games in a lot of different ways. A team that became really a strong second half team. Especially some of the ways that we that we played defensively in the back half of the season in the second half of those games I think was a huge step forward.”

“You don't want to be in the position, but also seeing our team's ability to overcome all the different injuries and all that that we had. In probably in all my years as a head coach, I don't think I've ever had a year like this where we played with this many different people and had that many different key guys out. I really felt like we never had really one game where we were like purely really healthy and it just never quite came together the way that you want.”

“I said in the press conference the other night like there's part of you that's like, man what would it have been like to have had some of those guys. But then there's also like the test it provided for our program and to see our guys despite that, win nine games, do so many things well and I think just as we're working to develop back that championship mentality in this program like for that to happen.”

“Maybe it wasn't the best thing for us this year, but that pays dividends. It does. It carries through and I think that may be the biggest sign of excitement and the progress that we all want to see maybe, more than anything else to be completely honest. It was obviously fun to finish off with the rivalry win here against UCLA. It was a great great environment in the Coliseum and guys were excited to play and it's it's been a fun year, man. It has.”

“It's been a really fun team to coach. The year's gone by really fast. And this team put themselves in position to do some cool things and we really, I think kind of took the next step from what our team did the previous year. I felt like we took a lot of steps two years ago, even though the win loss record was not anything close to what we expect here.”

“But the way that team played and improved and competed was different and this team took it another step and obviously the excitement looking ahead is, the opportunities in the future and for us to continue to pave that road and continue to grow. And so a fun year, a very good year that was very close to being a great year. The improvement, excitement is is real.”

Leading Student Section From Ladder After UCLA Win

“I thought every year here our home atmosphere has been just a little bit better. I said at the press conference, like LA's a place like you got to prove it. Like it just it is. And I love that about it. I like the fact that people aren't going to show up just because. I love the fact that you got to go prove it.”

“And when you do, there's no place better. And I think the way that our team played at home this year, winning all of our home games. We won some big time matchups here. The atmospheres in the Coliseum this year were the best that I've seen it. That just keeps getting better and better and it's going to be even better next year. Our students this year were incredible. Every game they brought it. There was just real energy there.”

“I just wanted a chance to get over and show our appreciation for them and and the job that they did in making the Coliseum a great place to play again and making it a real true home field advantage again. And that happened this year. Just a lot of appreciation for all those that supported us and and I can't wait for the next one. It was fun. And there was still so much energy in the crowd and obviously the band and just every everything about SC, man, you could just feel it in there Saturday night.”

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On Gage Roy, 2-Point Conversion

“He's a guy that kind of just embodies doing the best thing for the team always and always has been a positive member of the team. Kind of no job too big, no job too small. So, it was cool for him to get in there and kind of have his moment and he rose to the occasion.”

“Made a great play and there's a lot of those guys the other night, Josiah Zamora had some really big plays, had the punt return, had a really great block on the first third down conversion to Tanook Hines. Ryan Quintanar got in there, made some really nice plays. We had a lot of guys step up and it was, especially some of those guys with their last game there in the Coliseum. You could see the energy it brought to our sideline.”

“Yeah, it was it was a little bit of a senior night specific and Coach Dougherty had it dialed up and guys went in there and executed. It was awesome…he was he was pretty amped. He put all that energy into that one play and yeah, what a what a cool moment.”

Jayden Maiava Growth Throughout Season

“He grew a lot. Learned to play in different scenarios. He played with a lot of different lineups throughout the year, especially up front and then obviously the big backfield change after the Michigan game. We played against a run there of really good defensive teams there for a while, which you're going to do in this league. I thought he largely responded very well as much improved player from the four games that we saw the year before.”

“Growing as a leader, growing in his ability to manage the game, to understand how we're being attacked and how we want to attack, understanding of the offense, just all of it. He did a lot of great things.”

On Lake McRee

“He's meant a lot. He's a tough kid. He's been all about this place. He's kind of hung in there through a lot of different injuries and adversities that he's faced and yeah, so for him to have the kind of year that he's had; one being able to stay healthy all year, he was very productive as a player, played a ton of snaps for us.”

“But Lake has been one of the linchpins of the entire thing. Cool to see him make a lot of big plays. Obviously, get one last touchdown there in the Coliseum was awesome. He's been one of the guys that from the day I left the press conference when I got hired here and went out to practice that night, I remember seeing him out there. He's been here through all of it and and has persevered and turned himself into a heck of a player.”