When the transfer portal opened for its spring window in each of the past two years, Lincoln Riley still had important holes to fill on his roster. In 2023, USC picked up a starter on the offensive and defensive lines. In 2024, the Trojans brought in a starting cornerback, starting defensive tackle and kicker to put the finishing touches on its depth chart.
But after two springs scouring the portal for potential starters, the Trojans’ needs aren’t anywhere near as glaring in 2025. And with transfers seeking huge paydays ahead of the impending House settlement, prices have never been higher, either.
So when the portal officially opened for business Wednesday morning, USC had no plans to make major waves. Finally, ahead of Riley’s fourth season, he could afford to sit back and be selective with the spring portal while focusing most of the staff’s attention on growing its top-ranked 2026 class.
“The big thing for us is to just build a roster that doesn’t have to be too reliant on the spring portal,” Riley said. “I certainly feel like there’s less needs on this football team than maybe in some of the years past when we’ve got to this point.”
There was no escaping that reliance on the portal in previous seasons under Riley. During his first three offseasons, Riley has signed 53 transfers, compared to 54 high school prospects. Of those 53, 16 signed in the spring window, when the pool of players is more picked over and programs are more desperate — and willing to pay.
USC still managed to find some strong starters in that window. Riley nabbed star wideout Jordan Addison from Pittsburgh and linebacker Eric Gentry in his first April on the job. Emmanuel Pregnon, an All-Big Ten lineman last season, was a spring transfer from Wyoming in 2023. Defensive tackle Bear Alexander also looked like a possible all-conference talent — for a while, at least before leaving USC.
But the spring portal can also be particularly finicky. The third spring transfer Riley added in 2023, cornerback Tre’Quon Fegans, lasted just a single season and is now back in the portal a third time. Two of the three receivers USC added last spring, Charles Ross and Jay Fair, combined for just nine catches last season. Ross, unsurprisingly, is now also back in the portal.
“It’s definitely evolved in terms of what’s in there,” Riley said. “Obviously the guys that are in there, there’s a reason, and you’ve got to do your best in a short amount of time to get to the bottom of that.”
USC defensive lineman Bear Alexander was a spring transfer portal addition who didn’t work for the Trojans.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
With no time to fix the roster after April, coaches tend to get desperate filling their depth chart this time of year. The more desperate they get, the more they’re willing to overpay for players.
That leverage is also being wielded more than ever before this spring by players willing to bet their programs would rather negotiate their NIL deals than replace them in the portal.
Holding out for a bigger payday may not have worked out so well in the case of Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava, who found himself without a team after reportedly asking for a multi-million raise. But that sort of ploy has played out all across college football, including at USC.
Last spring, Alexander threatened to enter the portal, and USC opted to increase his NIL deal to instead keep him in L.A. The arrangement lasted all of five months before Alexander left the team. He signed in January with Oregon.
But while the spring portal has never been more lucrative to players or more of a risk for coaches, Riley doesn’t seem concerned about retaining his roster. As of Wednesday, just three current USC players — running back A’Marion Peterson, cornerback Maliki Crawford and edge rusher Lorenzo Cowan — had entered the portal. None were expected to be major factors for USC this upcoming season.
“If you’re trying to save something at the very end then that’s probably not a great sign,” Riley said. “We’re pretty secure with our players and where we’re at. Not everybody knows obviously in this world kind of how things are all going to play out, so certainly you gotta be ready to adjust, but I think we’ve got a pretty committed group that plan on being USC Trojans, and then, we’ll find the right couple of guys in the portal to add and help us get ready for the season.”
At least one of those additions is likely to come at linebacker, where the Trojans’ depth is most threadbare. USC has just five scholarship linebackers currently on the roster — one of which, Anthony Beavers Jr., is more of a hybrid safety — but boasts two strong options at the top in senior Eric Gentry and sophomore Desman Stephens.
Still, by Wednesday two linebackers already had plans to visit campus: South Dakota’s Gary Bryant and Boise State’s Drew Simpson.
Any top transfer offensive linemen are likely to get a look from USC. One, Ferris State’s Bryce George, had already scheduled a visit before Wednesday, according to On3.
Adding a receiver or two couldn’t hurt, either, considering how thin USC has been at the position. Riley said Tuesday that “patching up” its depth behind Ja’Kobi Lane and Makai Lemon, the Trojans’ top two wideouts, would be a priority in the coming months.
But this spring, sentiments within the program suggest no one feels the need to press in the portal. General manager Chad Bowden has reiterated on several occasions that USC is “a lot closer than people think”. He’s the one running point on the Trojans’ portal plans.
Throw in the looming specter of revenue sharing and the unpredictability of the current transfer market, and you can understand why Riley would subscribe to a more prudent approach to the portal this spring.
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be some good fits out there,” Riley said. “There probably will be, and we’ll sort through those. But I think the majority of our football team is here or signed to be here in June.”