College Football Insider Reveals Major Coach Will Make Playoff or Get Fired This Season

Lincoln Riley is entering his fifth season at the helm of one of college football’s powerhouse programs, but it hasn’t exactly played like one through his tenure.

Now, one of college football’s most recognizable insiders is taking the view that USC and Riley face one of two possible outcomes, each extreme opposite of the other.

It’s now or never for USC

This season will either be the moment when USC finally makes the College Football Playoff, or its coach could finally get canned, ESPN’s Pete Thamel has speculated.

“They could make the playoff or Lincoln Riley could get fired, and I don’t see a whole lot in the middle there,” Thamel said on the College GameDay podcast.

He added: “I’m not saying ‘the playoff or bust,’ but I do think those are the two most likely options here.”

College football powerhouse sliding into irrelevance

College Football Insider Reveals Major Coach Will Make Playoff or Get Fired in 2026 — IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

If it’s down to those two options, then “bust” would statistically be the most likely outcome, given USC has never made the College Football Playoff under Lincoln Riley, or ever.

Which is an astonishing thing to say generally, given the Trojans’ remarkable influence over the trajectory of college football over the decades, and the sheer dominance the program has exerted nationally in several different eras.

USC’s team in 2004 remains one of two in this century — Alabama in 2017 being the other — to start at No. 1 in the preseason poll and finish as national champions.

But it does feel a long way off from those days when Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush were terrorizing defenses with Pete Carroll patrolling the sideline at the Coliseum, and it’s those glory days that Southern Cal fans felt Riley would resurrect.

At first, he nearly did

Riley’s first season at the helm in 2022 was extremely promising.

USC compiled an 11-3 record, losing just one game before the postseason, and by just one point against Utah, and quarterback Caleb Williams won the Heisman Trophy.

But that 11-1 team then lost again to Utah in a rematch in the Pac-12 Championship Game and then again in a surprise defeat against Tulane in the Cotton Bowl.

What followed was an 8-5 effort in 2023 and then a meager 7-6 product in 2024 before a relative rebound with a 9-4 record last season.

Riley then compiled the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class in the months since, and when combining the returning talent on the field and bringing on Gary Patterson to revive what has been a pretty lousy defense, suddenly USC looks like it can make some noise.

Or will they?

Thamel himself sounds skeptical that USC can make that comeback, and it’s because of one fact about the roster, in particular.

Usually, looking over a team’s returning talent has proven a decent indicator of how well teams perform in a season, but disappointing efforts from Penn State, Clemson, and Texas would seem to disprove that theory.

“The metric that used to be one of the most reliable barometers for success in the portal era has suddenly become a little uncertain,” Thamel said.

“That is just not a given. You say, ‘Oh, they got 17 starters back… They’re going to be good.’ It’s just not the case anymore.”

Is it the case anymore that USC will be a contender? That remains the question for Lincoln Riley to answer before someone else answers it for him.

(CGD)

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