For Trojans and Huskies, Loser Becomes Irrelevant

Hustled out of Oklahoma five years ago, Lincoln Riley was supposed to restore USC to college football powerhouse status and it hasn't happened.

He's only been good, not the expected great, by directing the Trojans to second-tier bowl games rather than the College Football Playoff, and people are grumbling.

Even if it's Oregon, how do you lose to a back-up quarterback, which is what USC did last weekend 41-27 on its home field?

Not quite three years ago, Jedd Fisch was handed the keys to the University of Washington football program and given plenty of time and patience to restore a completely gutted roster.

Everyone seemed to be satisfied with the progress being made until the Huskies, with a lot of advertised talent, came out and looked decidedly ordinary in their first four games, all held at home, including a 27-24 loss to Minnesota.

So what we have at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday afternoon is 18th-ranked USC (4-1, 1-1) against UW (3-1, 0-1) in might best be described as the Panic Bowl.

Loser has the grumbling turn into something a lot stronger and maybe much more unpleasant.

Already the Huskies have paid for their lackluster play with a lot of empty seats for their Eastern Washington and Minnesota games, so fan erosion has settled in.

Judging from the mounting backlash, Riley, who is 39-19 with the Trojans, occupies one of the proverbial hot seats across the college game, while Fisch, 18-12 for the UW, is suddenly beginning to feel his Montlake perch grow ever warmer.

Riley holds a 2-1 edge in games against Fisch, beating him with 45-37 and 45-43 triple-overtime victories over Fisch's Arizona teams and falling to the Huskies 26-21 in 2024.

Lose for a second consecutive game this early and the impacted fan base will feel like the season is over and their team is just playing out the string.

The reaction to the Husky performance against Minnesota was dismay and disbelief over how unready the team was in all facets of the game.

The UW defense couldn't match the physicality of the Gophers and the offense continues to operate without anything that resembles a rushing attack.

Then Arizona coach Jedd Fisch, left, and USC coach Lincoln Riley talk prior to their game in Tucson in 2022. | USA TODAY Sports

The offensive line is an unexplainable mess and one player such as injured center Landen Hatchett, even as good as he is, should not be the difference between a reasonable ground game and no ground game.

Demond Williams Jr. has showed little progress in terms of being anything more than a mid-level quarterback for the Huskies and certainly not an NFL prospect if that's what he aspires to be.

So the Huskies and the Trojans get together in Los Angeles both trying to do damage control. The loser likely raises a white flag.

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