coach

The DeShaun Foster era is over after 15 games and just five victories, the former UCLA star running back’s storybook rise to head coach at his alma mater coming to an abrupt, deflating end.

After an 0-3 start that included back-to-back losses to Mountain West Conference teams, Foster was dismissed on Sunday in a move that showed the Bruins will no longer accept their status as the laughingstock of the college football world.

Tim Skipper, the former Fresno State interim coach who was brought in as a special assistant to Foster before this season, will serve as the interim coach for the rest of the season as the school commences a search for a permanent replacement.

UCLA was outscored by a 108-43 margin in its first three losses, leading to trolling tweets from the Big Sky and Pac-12 conferences in addition to widespread ridicule from national media figures who noted that the Bruins had clinched last place in the Mountain West and were the only remaining winless team in the Big Ten.

Athletic director Martin Jarmond said he made the decision to remove Foster after consultation with UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk, acting swiftly because there was no clear path to success in the Big Ten even with an extra week to prepare for the conference opener against Northwestern on Sept. 26.

“I felt with the timing, the bye week,” Jarmond said, “it gave our young men the opportunity to just take a breath, recalibrate and change some things that give them the best chance to finish out the season strong and also as a signal to our fans that this is not what Bruin football is going to be.”

Jarmond accepted responsibility for having hired Foster in February 2024 after a process lasting less than 72 hours and said he regretted putting the rookie coach in a difficult situation going into a new conference after national signing day with just half a year to prepare.

“I think you make the best decisions with the circumstances and the resources that you have to work with,” Jarmond said, referring to the constraints of still having the reduced revenue of Pac-12 membership combined with a condensed timeline.

Foster, who compiled a 5-10 record in a little more than one full season, is owed roughly $6.43 million in buyout money per the terms of his five-year contract, barring a new job that offsets that amount. UCLA said it would pay Foster’s buyout from athletic department-generated funds.

“Serving as the head coach at UCLA, my beloved alma mater, has been the honor of a lifetime,” Foster said in a statement. “While I am deeply disappointed that we were unable to achieve the success that our players, fans, and university deserve, I am grateful for the opportunity to have led this program.”

Starting Monday, the coaching change will open a 30-day transfer window for UCLA players who want to leave for other teams. Since the Bruins have not played four games, departing players will have the option to use a redshirt season but not immediately play for their new team.

The Bruins already appear to have lost three high school recruits after Johnnie Jones, a four-star offensive tackle from Bradenton, Fla.; Anthony Jones, a three-star defensive lineman from Irvine Crean Lutheran High; and Yahya Gaad, a three-star edge rusher from Medina, Tenn., said they were no longer committed to the school.

Foster’s dismissal shifts the spotlight onto Jarmond, who made the unconventional move to hire Foster despite Foster’s having no experience as a coordinator or head coach. Jarmond’s reluctance to fire coach Chip Kelly at the end of the previous season after the Bruins had absorbed embarrassing home losses to Arizona State and California necessitated the need for a quick replacement once Kelly left to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, leading some to blame the athletic director for leaving the football program in such a bind.

“I understand the criticism,” Jarmond said. “What I’ll remind you is these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. There are many stakeholders and factors that go into where and when and how to make a coaching change. That said, ultimately, I’m the athletic director. I’m the steward of this program, and the buck stops with me.”

Foster’s biggest selling points were his status as a legendary UCLA player who had appeared in the Bruins’ last Rose Bowl game in 1999 and his success as a running backs coach at the school under previous head coaches Jim Mora and Kelly.

During a meeting at Jarmond’s home the night before Foster’s hiring, the candidate told his future boss that he would win through a relentless approach.

DeShaun Foster, left, holds up a UCLA jersey with athletic director Martin Jarmond after being introduced as UCLA’s new football coach on Feb. 13, 2024.

(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

“He said, ‘Listen, Martin, no one’s going to outwork me, no one’s going to outwork this program,’” Jarmond said on the day of Foster’s introductory news conference. “ ‘If we lose a game, it’s going to be because we just weren’t good enough that day. But I guarantee you, I’m going to do everything I can and in my power to make this program successful.’ ”

In announcing the move, UCLA said a comprehensive national search for Foster’s replacement would involve Jarmond and executive senior associate athletics director Erin Adkins, who would be assisted by a committee composed of accomplished sports and business executives and UCLA greats that would be announced once finalized.

What will the Bruins be seeking in their next coach during a search that’s expected to last several months unless an ideal candidate who is available suddenly materializes?

“It’s got to be someone who exemplars our true Bruin values — respect, integrity and just understands those four letters,” Jarmond said, “but we’ll be looking for a coach quite frankly who sees the vision to take UCLA to the playoffs. We want to win at the highest level.”

Jarmond emphasized that this search was very different than the one that led to Foster’s hiring, noting the increased resources available because of UCLA’s move to the Big Ten and the extended timeline that will presumably lead to a wider pool of attractive candidates.

Jarmond touted Foster’s passion and integrity among the biggest factors that led to his hiring, and it didn’t hurt that the coach was wildly popular among returning players, allowing the Bruins to keep much of their roster intact heading into his debut season.

But Foster’s inexperience showed in his first game, the coach admitting he was nervous and unsure about how to address reporters after his team rallied for a victory over Hawaii. The Bruins started the season 1-5 before winning four of their last six games, momentarily steadying Foster’s standing with donors and fans.

A flurry of offseason moves in which Foster overhauled his coaching staff and scored a number of big recruiting wins, including the acquisition of star Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava from the transfer portal, appeared to show signs of growing on the job. Another promising development came during Big Ten media days in July, when Foster delivered a coherent opening message one year after stumbling his way through widely mocked and memed remarks that included the coach telling reporters, “We’re in L.A.”

But there was also a curious step backward. The coach who initially said he wanted to give his program a family feel, holding a carnival-like spring practice complete with a fire twirler and putting names on the backs of jerseys to help reporters identify players, severely curtailed access to practices and player interviews during training camp.

Foster shrugged off a season-opening 43-10 loss to Utah, saying his team was close to making the plays it needed to be competitive. But a 30-23 setback against Nevada Las Vegas that was followed by a 35-10 blowout against New Mexico showcased a series of worrisome trends.

Foster’s team couldn’t consistently move the ball, get defensive stops or avoid penalties. The Bruins are still seeking their first lead of the 2025 season after having fallen behind 20-0 against Utah, 23-0 against UNLV and 14-0 against New Mexico.

Foster’s pillars of discipline, respect and enthusiasm clearly never took hold given his players’ repeated penalties, lagging preparation for lesser opponents and lack of passion on the sideline.

In his final meeting with reporters before his dismissal, Foster initially blamed his team’s shortcomings on a lack of execution before finally accepting culpability when pressed by a reporter about who was ultimately responsible.

“Everything that happens can fall on me,” said Foster, who turns 46 in January. “I’m the head coach, so it can fall on me.”

Trying to sound upbeat in a monotone voice, Foster said he would use the bye week to make tweaks before the Bruins opened Big Ten play on the road against Northwestern.

“You know, we’ve got two weeks to fix this,” Foster said, “and just looking forward to this opportunity to get it fixed.”

A proud Bruin having met an inglorious ending, those fixes will now be in the hands of someone else.

They’re bad.

They’re really bad.

They’re, like, 0-12 bad.

The Bad News Bruins are a quarter of their way to completing a winless season, and who’s to say they won’t do what no UCLA team has done in more than a century and lose every game they play?

New Mexico tight end Simon Mapa (85) scores in front of UCLA linebacker Isaiah Chisom (32) on fourth down during the first half at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Friday night.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

They lack discipline, they can’t tackle, they can’t score and their coach sounds as if he has no idea how to extract them from what he acknowledged was the lowest point in his decades associated with their program.

DeShaun Foster once again looked completely out of his depth on Friday night when UCLA was humiliated in a 35-10 defeat to 15 1/2 -point underdog New Mexico, and now the question isn’t if the second-year coach will be fired but when.

Foster said he “most definitely” still felt he was the right coach to lead the program but he failed to make a persuasive case as to why that was the case.

“Because I can get these boys to play,” Foster said.

Did Foster feel as overmatched?

“Nope,” he replied. “Not at all.”

Except Foster looks overmatched. He sounds overmatched.

He has preached discipline to his players, but he either doesn’t know how to effectively deliver the message or teach them to exercise greater self-control. The Bruins committed 13 penalties during their loss to New Mexico, which cost them 116 yards. A week earlier in a defeat to UNLV, the Bruins were flagged for 14 penalties.

Foster didn’t sound as if he had any solutions.

UCLA coach Deshaun Foster leans over with his hands on his thighs while standing on the sidelines during the final moments of the Bruins’ loss to New Mexico at the Rose Bowl on Friday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“It blows my mind,” he said.

UCLA’s run defense, or lack thereof, was equally mind blowing. New Mexico rushed for 298 yards, and that was with starting running back Scottre Humphrey playing only the first quarter because of an injury.

Foster pointed to how the Bruins won four of their last six games last year as a reason he believed they would turn around their season.

However, racking up personal fouls and allowing opponents to run all over you aren’t trademarks of winning football, and considering the magnitude of the problems this year, it’d be naive to think they could be remedied any time soon.

Of course, ultimately responsible for this entire mess is Martin Jarmond, UCLA’s bumbling athletic director.

Jarmond was the one who refused to fire the Bruins’ previous coach, Chip Kelly, after several mediocre seasons. Jarmond was the one who set a self-imposed 96-hour deadline to find a new coach when Kelly suddenly departed the program to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator. Jarmond was the one who hired the inexperienced Foster, who could end up being to UCLA what Gerry Faust was to Notre Dame.

Jarmond hasn’t just failed to revive UCLA football. He’s bludgeoned the program to the brink of death.

Jarmond didn’t attend the postgame news conference on Friday, leaving it to Foster to tell fans why they should return to the Rose Bowl for future games.

UCLA offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio (72) walks toward the sideline as New Mexico defensive end Darren Agu (10) celebrates stopping the Bruins on a fourth down play in the fourth quarter at the Rose Bowl on Friday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“If you’re a real Bruin,” Foster said, “you’ll still be a fan.”

UCLA can buy out the remaining three-plus years of Foster’s contract for upwards of $5 million, and Jarmond might as well be swept out with him whenever that happens, whether it’s during this season or after. With his track record, who could count on Jarmond to find the coach who will elevate the Bruins from college football purgatory?

By now, it’s clear Foster won’t be that coach.

The Bruins have not led at any point of any game this season. They were never ahead of Utah, which blew them out in their season opener. They were never ahead of the two Mountain West Conference teams they played in their two most recent games.

UCLA remains the only Big Ten team without a win, and the Bruins very well could have an 0-fer season.

Foster’s team has a couple of extremely beatable opponents on its schedule in Northwestern and Maryland. Then again, as these early-season games have proven, UCLA is also extremely beatable — maybe even historically beatable.

The Southern Section announced on Friday that it has declared 19 transfer students at Bishop Montgomery athletically ineligible for two years following an investigation that determined they violated CIF bylaws when moving to the Catholic school in Torrance to play football.

The announcement comes after the school fired its coach, Ed Hodgkiss, canceled the rest of its season after playing one game and announced the resignation of President Patrick Lee following an investigation by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The Southern Section released the following statement: “Based upon the investigation, self-reporting, and findings of Bishop Montgomery High School, along with CIF-Southern Section’s own independent review, the Southern Section has determined that multiple students transferred to Bishop Montgomery High School to play varsity football for the 2025-2026 school year in violation of CIF bylaws.

“Notification has been sent to Bishop Montgomery High School administrators and parents/guardians of the football transfer student-athletes. Those determinations [have been/will be] posted on the CIF-Southern Section website in conformance with Section practices. The CIF-Southern Section and its staff will not comment on individual student athletic eligibility.”

The former coach and several players previously hired an attorney to investigate the matter.

The Southern Section previously announced ineligibility for five players. After further investigation, there are 19 players listed as ineligible on the Southern Section transfer portal.

Some of those players were expected to try to transfer to other schools after Bishop Montgomery discontinued varsity football. They are listed as ineligible for two years. Those players can appeal to try to restore their eligibility.

For months in the spring and summer, Bishop Montgomery had been touting its transfers. The school scheduled powerhouse Mater Dei for a nonleague game even though its program was primarily Division 10 or 11 in past years. While transfers were checking in, none of the paperwork was submitted to the Southern Section until August. That’s when trouble began.

This year, the Southern Section has been using AI and possibly funds available through the state CIF to hire investigators to double-check transfers submitted by schools. Previously when a school approved a verified change of address, it was mostly automatically accepted. There have been other schools determined to have ineligible players, with Long Beach Millikan having to forfeit two games.

This comes after a booster to Narbonne, St. Bernard and Bishop Montgomery, Brett Steigh, received a letter from an attorney with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles telling him to “cease and desist” from helping any Catholic schools.

Steigh went on a podcast to say he paid parents to transfer their sons to Narbonne in 2024 and he also helped pay tuition of football players at St. Bernard in 2020. The football program was dropped there in 2021, 2022 and 2023 after the head coach resigned in the middle of an FBI and IRS investigation.

When he first started spreading the word about Waymond Jordan, Mike Bennett figured the film would speak for itself. The Escambia High coach had been in the South Florida preps scene long enough to know what he was seeing from his new running back.

“Just watching him run the football for the first time, he was amazing,” Bennett said. He figured scholarship offers would roll in soon enough.

Jordan had similar expectations. Since he first picked up football, at 4 years old, he’d always told himself that he’d play at a big school, on the biggest stage. He’d come to Escambia as a senior with that in mind.

But in 2021, four years before Lincoln Riley and USC would see that same star potential, other college coaches, for whatever reason, weren’t paying much mind.

USC running back Waymond Jordan carries the ball during a win over Georgia Southern at the Coliseum on Saturday. Overlooked earlier in his career, Jordan has become a key piece of the Trojans’ offense.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Given where Jordan stands today — the top running back on one of the nation’s top rushing offenses through two weeks of the college football season — plenty of them probably regret that now.

“Every coach in the country, I sent stuff to,” Bennett said. “I mean, everybody. I sent it out to everybody.”

Some smaller schools monitored Jordans’ senior year at Escambia, keeping a close eye as he rushed for 1,225 yards and 12 touchdowns. A few schools said he could walk-on. But none of them extended a scholarship offer. Jordan couldn’t understand why.

Hutchinson Community College, a junior college in Hutchinson, Kan., was one of the only places to give him an opportunity. Hutchinson was a thousand miles from his hometown of Pensacola, and a world away from the major college football he thought he’d be playing. But the staff there knew Escambia well, and they believed in what they saw in Jordan’s tape.

If all went well with junior college, he could still get the Power Four offers he was looking for.

“He believed in himself. And he bet on himself,” said Greg Cross, the Hutchinson running backs coach. “And I would say he bet right.”

Cross figured it was a worthy bet then, before most anyone else. He could see on film that Jordan had a rare instinct for making defenders miss. In the open field, not many people could bring Jordan down on their own either. In some ways, his skillset reminded Cross a little bit of Alvin Kamara, who played the 2014 season at Hutchinson.

“But that wasn’t going to happen for him overnight,” Cross said.

USC’s Waymond Jordan stretches out to score a touchdown against Georgia Southern at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)

Jordan was by no means a finished product on arrival at Hutchinson. He hadn’t really learned yet how to take care of his body. He was out of shape. He needed to add muscle and change his diet. Plus, he struggled early on with pass protection.

Then his hamstrings started bothering him.

“I knew it was in the best interest for him to redshirt,” Cross said.

Hutchinson could afford to be patient with him. But it was a tough pill to swallow for Jordan.

“He went through a phase where he was kind of down,” Cross said. “We had a lot of talks. We would talk every day. I just wanted to keep him focused, keep him locked in, keep him motivated.

“So, me and him had a talk about it, and I said, ‘You can either let it get the best of you, or you can stay motivated and work 10 times as hard.’”

It was a formative chat for Jordan. Cross implored him to get serious about taking care of his body. He wanted him in the training room every day. They started tracking his meals. He began using the head coach’s YMCA membership.

From then on, Cross says, “I was grilling him, 24/7.”

He came back that second season looking like an entirely different player. He lost weight. He was stronger and more explosive. He had a full recovery routine.

But his hamstring was still acting up. Then, after appearing in two games as a redshirt freshman, Jordan suffered a minor fracture in his foot.

“It felt, to him, like he couldn’t catch a break,” Cross said.

He wore a boot for a couple of weeks. When he came back, he had to play through pain.

Even still, there were glimpses of what Jordan could be. Late in the season, in a game against No. 2 ranked Iowa Western Community College, Jordan broke out with two fourth-quarter rushing scores, one from 47 yards out, the other from 16, that helped put Iowa Western away. He finished with four carries for 99 yards and two touchdowns.

Hutchinson lost its next game to East Mississippi Community College and fell short of an NJCAA national title in 2023. But for Jordan, everything was trending upward that offseason.

“You really saw him take that next step,” said Drew Dallas, Hutchinson’s head coach. “It was just how quickly he was hitting the hole, how fast and confident he was playing. He’d trimmed down his body fat to hardly any at all. He was just this rocked-up ball of muscle who could see the field really well.”

That spring, as word got around, some smaller schools like Florida Atlantic and Florida International started asking about him.

By the end of that spring, Jordan had the scholarship offers he’d been waiting for.

Cross figured he would take the opportunity and run with it. And he wouldn’t have blamed him for doing so. In fact, he couldn’t remember anyone in his time at Hutchinson turning down an FBS opportunity to return to junior college.

But in Jordan’s case, he believed bigger offers could come.

“He told me that if I stayed, I would be able to come to places like [USC,]” Jordan recalls. “That it would all pay out in the end.”

USC running back Waymond Jordan cuts and changes direction while carrying the ball against Georgia Southern at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Jordan called Cross back with a decision just a few minutes after their conversation.

“When you leaving?” Cross remembers asking him.

“He says no, ‘Coach, I’m gonna stay. I know what I can be.’”

Cross was stunned at the time. Thinking back on that conversation, he laughs.

“He put it all on red, I guess,” he said.

But it took all of one week that season for Jordan’s bet to be vindicated. He rushed for 179 yards and two touchdowns during Hutchinson’s season opener on just 14 carries. That Sunday, Cross got a call from a coach at Michigan State. Was Jordan for real? Because, he said, they were watching closely.

It was “one phone call after another, every week after that,” Cross said. Jordan rushed for 174 yards the following week, then 175 yards and four touchdowns on just nine carries in Week 4. Over a two-week stretch in November, Jordan exploded for 348 yards and four touchdowns, prompting Missouri and Central Florida, two Power Four schools, to offer him scholarships.

He finally had the opportunity he’d been waiting for. So in December, just before the NJCAA playoffs, Jordan committed to Central Florida.

USC didn’t come into the picture until later that month, just as Jordan was named the junior college national player of the year. Other Power Four schools, like North Carolina and Mississippi, were already making their cases to Jordan. But USC had a connection to Cross through Doug Belk, the Trojans’ secondary coach.

USC didn’t necessarily have a need at running back, having already added explosive New Mexico transfer Eli Sanders to its class. But when Anthony Jones, USC’s running backs coach, spoke to Jordan on the phone, he came away convinced that “USC needed this young man.”

“Waymond checked all the boxes that we were looking for,” Jones said.

Hutchinson beat Iowa Western to win the NJCAA national title in spite of Iowa Western’s all-out efforts to bottle up the Blue Dragons’ star running back. Two weeks later, he was on USC’s campus.

As soon as Jordan called him during his visit to L.A., Cross knew he was committing to USC.

Nine months later, the same running back who didn’t have a single Division I offer as a high school senior was bursting out of the USC backfield, weaving through a crowd of defenders on his way into the Coliseum end zone, just like Reggie Bush, Marcus Allen and O.J. Simpson once did.

As he scored his first touchdown as a Trojan, Jordan looked up into the stands and saw his family.

He’d waited four sometimes-frustrating years for that moment.

“His patience, his perseverance really built him into something a lot bigger and better,” Dallas said.

“I think that’s as big of a part of his journey as anything.”

“Misconceptions” surrounding England’s team and their style of play are “disrespectful”, according to head coach Brendon McCullum.

McCullum took over England’s Test side in 2022 alongside captain Ben Stokes and revived a team that had won one match in 17.

They have since become known for a fearless and aggressive brand of cricket, particularly with the bat, but McCullum – who dislikes the term “Bazball” which was coined to describe the approach – has frustrations around how they are perceived as a team.

“We never have that kind of mindset about ourselves in the sense that, we’re not rigid in how we go about things,” McCullum told the For the Love of Cricket podcast.

“I think there’s a bit of a misconception about how we play, that we swing the bat as hard as we can, we try to take wickets and then we go for a round of golf and a few beers.

“I find it slightly disrespectful to all of you guys [the players] and all of the people in the set-up who work so hard and have such clear determination of wanting to succeed, to have that so simply categorised, almost.”

Before the start of the summer, McCullum called on his players to show more “humility” after making headlines with some of their comments which were perceived as not caring enough about winning.

Comments which caused a stir include Ben Duckett saying it did not matter that England lost 3-0 to India as long as they went on to win the Champions Trophy, while in September last year Harry Brook said “if you get caught somewhere on the boundary, then who cares?” when asked about his side’s one-day batting approach.

But McCullum added that his messaging has always been around players’ mindset, rather than instilling a particular way of playing or a focus on high scoring.

“For us, it’s about trying to create an environment that allows you to handle the pressures of international cricket, to understand the size of that task but to not be restricted in your ability to play,” McCullum added.

“You want your talent to come out, I hate seeing talent stymied, so having a certain style or belief in how we want to play gives us the best chance of success.

“You can’t do that if you are bound by this tension and negativity. I know they want to win, I know I want to win, I know the opposition wants to win.

“Just because I keep saying it doesn’t mean it’s just going to happen, so how do we go about that?”

Derwin Henderson was not intending to coach this season. He hadn’t been a head coach since 2019 at Hawthorne. But he lives in the Inland Empire, and Rialto High kept asking him to take the open position. He finally relented, and big changes are already taking place.

Rialto is off to a 3-0 start with wins over Ontario, Temecula Prep and Indio. That’s notable because the team was 0-10 last season and 1-9 in 2023.

Henderson has been a head coach at Morningside, South East and Hawthorne. He was in the LAPD for 33 years, rising to sergeant. His son, Bryce, is a freshman football player at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.

Linebacker Alberto Tapia has been a standout for Rialto on defense. Noah Valdez is a top athlete on offense and defense.

The games figure to get tougher in the coming weeks, but there’s a culture change at Rialto that certainly is good for the players and the student body.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

Having earned three national championship rings playing volleyball for UCLA, 6-foot-8 Tom Stillwell knows a little bit about competition and commitment to sports excellence.

Nothing, though, compares to his joy being a Girl Dad.

“That’s a full-time job, and being a volleyball dad is the best,” said Stillwell, an All-American at UCLA.

It was never planned that his two daughters, Maya, a 6-4 senior, and Lucy, a 6-0 sophomore, would become volleyball players at Harvard-Westlake. Stillwell and his wife, Julie, met at UCLA. She’s 5-6 and neither was thinking how tall their kids might be. But it happened. They were raising giants.

“We felt they needed to be involved in something and as they started to get really tall, I started to talk to friends who had tall females and their recommendation was get them involved in sports because it’s going to turn their tall from being awkward to cool,” Stillwell said. “For them, whether it was tennis, swimming, basketball or volleyball, it didn’t really matter to us. It was whatever they became connected with. They both had journeys.”

Maya had little interest in sports growing up.

“I was not athletic,” Maya said. “It was originally a way to get my body moving. I was into art and music. I started in club when I was 12 and hated it. It wasn’t for me. When COVID happened, we were forced to move to another club and I loved my teammates and coaches and started to like it.”

She became a top middle blocker, playing on a national championship club team and receiving a scholarship to Northwestern. She’s taken advantage of a mini-grass court in the family backyard and her father’s experience having switched from basketball to volleyball during his high school days at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.

Lucy followed her sister into volleyball after trying other sports. She’s a backup at Harvard-Westlake, which started the season 7-0 until running into Marymount. The team is 10-2. Both have grade-point averages above 4.0.

Except for their mom, the Stillwells share a common experience — receiving stares because of their height.

Said Maya: “People at school are used to it, but walking outside, it’s like, ‘Oh you’re so tall. Do you play basketball?’ I never get, ‘Do you play volleyball?‘”

“It’s very funny,” Tom said. “I think all tall people have a similar experience with people coming up to you and asking, ‘Do you play basketball?’ When you play sports it helps to have that community because of a lot of their club people are similar height.”

But who gets the extra leg room when flying?

“I’m older and taller,” Maya said.

“She does,” Lucy said.

“Let me tell you who gets the worst seat. Julie, my wife,” Tom said. “She’s like, ‘I’m the mom. I birthed you. I get the worst seat?’”

The daughters never got to meet their legendary grandmother, Liz Shapiro, who was always at Tom’s games at Notre Dame and UCLA. Her generosity to both schools in terms of support will never be forgotten. She died of cancer after Tom’s volleyball career had ended.

“She was a rabid fan,” Tom said. “She would have been at every game, every tournament, club, high school, probably trying to watch practice.”

Tom, 51, has been helpful offering tips whenever his daughters ask, but he has tried to let them listen and learn from their coaches and not impose his own athletic beliefs on them.

“Volleyball just connected with them. It was fun to watch,” he said. “I told them they’re not doing it for me or my wife. They have to enjoy it and if they don’t, they shouldn’t do it. This is their journey, not mine.”

As a Girl Dad, Tom has adopted a specific philosophy no matter what he sees or hears.

“All I’m trying to be is their dad,” he said. “That’s my No. 1 focus. Not their volleyball coach, not their mentor in volleyball. It’s hard enough for these teenage girls. They don’t need to hear their dad yelling.”

I don’t care whom you’re playing.

Seven-hundred fifty-five yards are a lot of yards.

That’s how much USC gained during its 59-20 victory over Georgia Southern on Saturday.

One-hundred thirty-two points are a lot of points.

USC receiver Ja’Kobi Lane evades Georgia Southern defensive back Tracy Hill Jr. during the Trojans’ win Saturday at the Coliseum.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

That’s how much USC has scored in its two games this season, including its blowout victory over Missouri State the week before.

If you want to believe the Trojans are better than they were in their previous two seasons, there are developments that could further convince you that you’re right. If you want to believe Lincoln Riley has elevated his team from mediocrity, there are statistics you could cite to support your observations.

There is also evidence to the contrary, of course.

The two games USC has played this season were more or less Rorschach tests.

The only indisputable truth to emerge was that Trojans receivers Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane would be serious problems for every one of their opponents.

Everything else remained up for debate.

When you watched the Trojans trample over former Clay Helton’s Eagles at the Coliseum, were you encouraged by how quarterback Jayden Maiava threw for 412 yards or concerned how badly he misfired on some of the handful of passes he didn’t complete?

Was your breath taken away by how Waymond Jordan changed direction in his 167-yard performance or did you gasp in horror when he fumbled on the opening drive?

Were you heartened by how USC scored every time it was in the red zone or alarmed by its three separate illegal-use-of-hands penalties on defense?

Did you see the 39-point margin of victory as an indication the Trojans are ready to take on the big boys or Georgia Southern’s four consecutive drives into their territory in the first half as a sign they will encounter trouble when the level of competition improves?

Riley was more measured in praising his team than he was a week ago.

“Definitely a lot of positives to take out of it,” Riley said.

However …

“Several things we have to clean up,” he said. “We had a couple of errors, I thought, especially with penalties where we have to be better as a football team, more disciplined as a football team.”

Riley warned his team of the consequences of failing to improve.

“It’s like I told the guys last night, there were plays we made last week that some weeks where if we’re not cleaner when we play more talented teams, the results are going to look like that,” he said. “And, so, we have to look at it through the lens of, ‘Did we do our best?’ We’re still a long ways off our best. That’s the No. 1 thing that showed up.”

Riley has sounded tone deaf at times during his three-plus years at USC, but this wasn’t one of them.

Mistakes could be punished by Michigan State, which will present the Trojans with their first real test on Sept. 20.

Mistakes could be punished by Illinois and Notre Dame and Oregon.

USC coach Lincoln Riley directs his team from the sideline during the Trojans’ win over Georgia Southern Saturday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Mistakes probably won’t be punished by UCLA, which has been turned into a complete Dumpster fire by athletic director Martin Jarmond, but that’s another story for another day.

For what it’s worth, Georgia Southern’s coach offered an optimistic view of USC’s ceiling. Helton was the Trojans’ head coach for five-plus seasons and still follows the program.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s a better personnel team than last year, especially, I think, offensively,” Helton said.

He pointed specifically to receivers Lemon and Lane, and running backs Jordan and Eli Sanders.

“And the quarterback [Maiava] is playing really, really within himself. You can see reps and experience matter,” Helton continued. “I’ve always thought that, and the experience he had last year, you see his growth.

“They’ve got a good situation here. You can see the changes that have been made from last year’s personnel group to this year’s personnel group, and talking with Coach Riley, I know he’s happy. He’s getting the opportunity to coach a lot more, he said, and you can see it. You can see it on tape.”

Helton still considers himself a champion of USC, and what he saw the Trojans do against his team on Saturday night gave him hope for what they might be able to accomplish this season.

“I hope,” Helton said, “they go win it all.”

DeShaun Foster is a beloved Bruin, so the doubts of his being in over his head as the UCLA football coach are merely whispered. Attending a recent panel discussion, I heard Times columnist Bill Plaschke refer to Coach Foster as “a placeholder.” Saturday’s game against Utah only solidified both perceptions. In today’s college football landscape there are plenty of teams who use the transfer portal to be competitive while building toward something better. One game in, UCLA appears to be failing miserably to do so. As a 42-year season-ticket holder and alumnus, the football program, its fans, and the university deserve so much more.

Eric Forseth
Murrieta

All we heard from UCLA preseason was Nico, Nico, Nico [Iamaleava]. After watching his performance against unranked Utah, he has to be the most overrated transfer in the country. Add in the fact that the defense was absolutely pathetic, it’s another losing season. Rose Bowl you better order more tarps.

Joe Novak
La Crescenta

As I walked out of the UCLA-Utah football game in disgust in the fourth quarter after watching an uninspired and incompetent defense and a team that looked, frankly, soft, I had to smile as the PA system in the Rose Bowl appropriately blasted the song “Build Me Up Buttercup.” Uninspired and untalented. Basically, buttercups.

Alan Abajian
Alta Loma

Will somebody please explain to the Bruin defense that it is called TACKLE football??

Steve Cizmar
Huntington Beach

After UCLA’s humiliating, devastating and humbling 43-10 loss to Utah in the season opener, coach DeShaun Foster said, “We were close.”

Close to what, Division II?

Jack Wolf
Westwood

Women’s Rugby World Cup – Pool C: Ireland v New Zealand

Venue: Brighton & Hove Albion Stadium Date: Sunday, 7 September Kick-off: 14:45 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer from 14:30, BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra from 14:30 and BBC Radio Ulster and Foyle from 14:00; also live with text commentary on the BBC Sport website.

Ireland head coach Scott Bemand says he is “confident” Aoife Wafer will be ready for a World Cup quarter-final after resisting the urge to include her for Sunday’s final Pool C game against New Zealand in Brighton.

The back row is yet to feature in the competition because of pre-tournament knee surgery and although she was considered for Sunday’s game against the defending champions, the Irish camp has erred on the side of caution.

Bemand confirmed there was a temptation to introduce the Wexford woman for the meeting with the Black Ferns, but with either France or South Africa to come next week, having the Women’s Six Nations player of the tournament ready for then takes priority.

“All the way through there has been a bit of a plan around Aoife, from the very beginning to her joining up with the group a couple of days after we arrived, and everything is tracking and trending,” Bemand said.

“Aoife is back in training, she’s doing well, and she’s desperate to be involved.

“We considered picking her this week, but we’ve made a decision as her best opportunity and the team’s best opportunity, is to go hard in training again next week and we’ll see where that stands us for the following week.

“I’m really confident and if you look in her eyes you can see she is really confident as well.”

Moments later, the 38-year-old was involved in an altercation with a Sounders staff member and was held back by team-mate Oscar Ustari before appearing to spit in the coach’s direction.

“I feel bad about what happened, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to acknowledge it and apologise to everyone who felt hurt by what I did,” added Suarez.

Speculation has circulated about the extent of any punishment he may face but Suarez added he wants to aid Inter Miami’s push to make the MLS Cup play-offs.

“We know there’s still a lot of the season ahead, and we’re going to work together to achieve the successes that this club and all of its fans deserve,” he wrote.

Suarez is no stranger to controversy.

The former Barcelona and Atletico Madrid striker has been involved in several controversial incidents during his career.

In 2011 when at Liverpool, Suarez was given an eight-match ban after being found guilty of racially abusing Manchester United full-back Patrice Evra.

He also served bans for three separate biting incidents when playing for Ajax, Liverpool and Uruguay.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Turns out, the marquee matchup Friday night between the Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs isn’t just a season-opening showdown between two premier quarterbacks and legitimate Super Bowl hopefuls.

It’s also a family feud — minus the bad blood.

Devin Woodhouse, head strength and conditioning coach for the Chargers, is the son-in-law of Chiefs coach Andy Reid, an under-the-radar connection that further hems these AFC West rivals.

“In our first game last year, I was a little anxious playing them,” Woodhouse told The Times. “It felt weird rooting against him at times.”

Reid understands, and he loves the fact that before bringing Woodhouse with him from the University of Michigan, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh called his Kansas City counterpart and asked him if that would be OK.

“I said, ‘Heck, yeah, I’m honored that he’s got an opportunity to work for you,’” Reid said. “I got the biggest kick out of that, that Jim would even think of that. … What a class act.”

Chargers strength and conditioning coach Devin Woodhouse instructs players during practice at The Bolt in El Segundo on Dec. 13, 2024.

(Los Angeles Chargers)

Woodhouse, modest and focused on his Chargers responsibilities, was initially reluctant to sit down for an interview. But Harbaugh and Reid nudged him to talk, as did his direct boss, Ben Herbert, executive director of player performance.

“I don’t want to dim that light on him,” Herbert said. “I want that light brighter.”

Woodhouse, 34, who grew up in Rancho Cucamonga, met his future wife, Drew Ann Reid, when they were members of the same ward of their church in Provo, Utah. They had mutual friends, an instant connection and were married in 2013.

The couple was further bonded by tragedy. Drew Ann’s older brother, Garrett, who struggled with drug abuse for years, died in 2012. The twin brother of Woodhouse, Chaz, who was confined to a wheelchair with cerebral palsy, died a year later.

“As our relationship was growing, her brother passed away,” Woodhouse said. “We grew even closer together.”

The two now have four children, two boys and two girls, all of whom refer to Reid as “Gramps.” Woodhouse doesn’t call his father-in-law anything but “Coach.”

“I would say he’s a better man than he is a coach, and he’s a pretty dang good coach,” Woodhouse said. “And [mother-in-law] Tammy is the head coach of the head coach, so that’s how good they both are. I just love them, and not just the people they are for my wife, but for my kids and their grandkids.

“One of the things I love most about Coach Reid is how much I feel people love to play for him. It’s a cool thing to witness and I respect it a lot.”

Woodhouse feels the same way about Harbaugh, for whom he and Herbert worked at the University of Michigan.

“Ben Herbert found Dev,” Harbaugh said. “When Herb recommends somebody, I already know it’s going to be good. He doesn’t bring in anybody who doesn’t have a tremendous work ethic. Devin came in, and Herb was right.”

Herbert is meticulous down to the smallest detail. For instance, each dumbbell at the Chargers facility is emblazoned with the club’s lightning-bolt logo. Not only is that wall of weights always precisely arranged, but every lightning bolt is arched in an identical way. To ensure there’s never a speck of dust on the floor, Herbert and his crew use electric leaf blowers each day to clean the massive space.

Helping oversee the physical well-being of so many elite athletes is a challenging assignment, particularly for a franchise that has an unfortunate history of losing key players to injuries — as the Chargers did in August with left tackle Rashawn Slater, who sustained a season-ending knee injury.

Chargers strength and conditioning coach Devin Woodhouse helps quarterback Justin Herbert with his jersey during training camp in El Segundo on July 21, 2025.

(Ty Nowell / Los Angeles Chargers)

The way Harbaugh sees it, no one is better equipped to train an NFL team than Herbert.

“We are the tip of the spear,” said Herbert, who is not related to Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. “Our job is to impact the mental and physical capability of the players. The physical part is much easier. The mental part — emotional stability, consistency — that’s the separator. And trust is everything.”

Woodhouse has a knack for building and maintaining those trusts.

“He has an ability to build relationships across a melting pot of personalities,” Herbert said. “He’s also versatile across range-of-motion, tissue and joint, strength, power and movement traits. So much so that with my 14-year-old, twice a week I want Coach Woodhouse to work with him.”

Woodhouse has a particularly keen eye when it comes to evaluating the tiniest aspects of a person in motion, helping players make subtle adjustments to the way they run in order to improve their speed.

Chargers strength and conditioning coach Devin Woodhouse works with Chargers wide receiver Ladd McConkey before a game at SoFi Stadium against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 15, 2024.

(Ty Nowell / Los Angeles Chargers)

“Dev’s someone who’s going to support you, but he’s going to tell it like it is,” Chargers receiver Ladd McConkey said. “I’ll be running a route, and Dev’s over there with his phone recording me. Then we’ll look at it in slo-mo and break it down.”

During games, Woodhouse is on the sideline as a “get-back” coach — a term he doesn’t particularly like — making sure players and coaches keep a sufficient distance from the field.

As for his own emotions, he figures he will have them in check, even with his father-in-law on the opposite sideline.

Family is family, true. But football is football.

Four Marine League football coaches who had their teams forfeit games against Narbonne last season in protest of the City Section and Los Angeles Unified School District failing to investigate alleged rule violations in the Gauchos’ program are feeling a bit of vindication after a Narbonne booster said he paid parents of players to transfer to the Harbor City school.

They believe their actions were warranted to highlight the issues seen off the field in high school football despite receiving criticism from some. An LAUSD investigation eventually determined a group of Narbonne players were ineligible, and the City Section imposed a three-year playoff ban on Narbonne for rule violations.

Mike Christensen, the former Carson football coach, said he’s “sad” that the booster Brett Steigh has admitted involvement in the ongoing Bishop Montgomery football scandal that has resulted in the team’s season coming to an end. Steigh also helped finance St. Bernard’s football program, which shut down its team in 2021, 2022 and 2023 following the resignation of coach Manuel Douglas, a former Narbonne coach.

Christensen said coaches who participated in the forfeits last year faced repercussions from school district personnel, “but it needed to be done.”

“My relationship with my principal was never the same,” Christensen said.

Perhaps the coach under the most pressure was former Banning coach Raymond Grajeda, who was the first to forfeit his league game to Narbonne. Then the three others followed.

“We got punished hard from the district office,” Grajeda said. “It was one of the reasons for me quitting.”

He said all the rumors about money changing hands and school officials declining to investigate without evidence was motivation to the coaches as a unit to try to stop the rule violations.

“Everything was true,” Grajeda said. “We live in the community. Some of those deals that went down, they were in our backyard. If you’re going to do the transfer thing, do it right. I feel some sense of relief. The future of football in this area, we want to be competitive and fair.”

Former Gardena coach Monty Gilbreath said, “I think it turned out to be good because we were able to bring attention what was going on and caused the City Section to take a closer look. We knew as coaches it was a fact. We didn’t have the means to prove it.”

Christensen retired, Gilbreath resigned as did Grajeda, who now spends his time watching his freshman daughter play flag football for Banning.

Only San Pedro coach Corey Walsh kept coaching this season.

“I do not care at all,” Walsh said of the reaction to the booster accepting responsibility for the illegal payments. “We’re playing Great Oak this week. I was trying to see the bigger picture. I knew where this was headed if something didn’t change.”

Christensen said last January he was attending a coaches’ convention when several coaches came up to him and thanked him for taking a stand last fall.

“This has to stop,” he said.

As a young man, he stood next to Martin Luther King Jr. as he delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. As a college basketball coach, he blazed a trail for Black coaches and players. As an executive, he was instrumental in signing Michael Jordan to his groundbreaking endorsement deal with Nike.

George Raveling had an impact that stretched far beyond basketball, the sport which he last coached three decades ago at USC. He became a revered figure in the game, not for the number of wins he accumulated over his career, but for his role as a mentor to many.

Raveling, 88, died Monday after a battle with cancer, his family announced.

“There are no words to fully capture what George meant to his family, friends, colleagues, former players, and assistants — and to the world,” the family said in a statement. “He will be profoundly missed, yet his aura, energy, divine presence, and timeless wisdom live on in all those he touched and transformed.”

Raveling coached at USC from 1986 to 1994, the first Black coach to take the helm of the Trojans basketball program. Over his first four seasons at the school, Raveling didn’t experience much success, winning just 38 of USC’s 116 games over that stretch.

Raveling found his stride in the second half of his tenure, taking the Trojans to two straight NCAA tournaments and two NITs after that. But his overall record at USC never broke .500 (115-118). In September 1994, Raveling was in a serious car accident that eventually led him to retire. He suffered nine broken ribs and a collapsed lung and fractured his pelvis and collarbone.

After his coaching career, Raveling joined Nike as the director of grassroots basketball, later rising to the role of director of international basketball.

But his biggest contribution at Nike came out of his relationship with Jordan, whom Raveling had coached as an assistant with the U.S. national team at the 1984 Olympics. Jordan, whose deal with Nike sent the brand into a new stratosphere, credited Raveling for making it happen. In the foreword for Raveling’s book, Jordan called him “a mentor”.

“If not for George, there would be no Air Jordan,” Jordan wrote.

Across the basketball world, similar plaudits came pouring in Tuesday in light of Raveling’s death.

Eric Musselman, USC’s current basketball coach, said Raveling was “not only a Hall of Fame basketball mind but a tremendous person who paved the way on and off the court.”

Former Villanova coach Jay Wright wrote on social media that Raveling was “the finest human being, inspiring mentor, most loyal alum and a thoughtful loving friend.”

Raveling grew up in Washington D.C., during a time of segregation and hardship. His family lived in a two-room apartment above a grocery store, where they shared a bathroom with four other families on the same floor. His father died suddenly when he was 9. His mother suffered a mental health crisis a few years later and spent most of her remaining years in a psychiatric hospital. Raveling left home at 14 to attend a boarding school.

It was at St. Michaels, a mostly white boarding school in Pennsylvania, that Raveling first started playing basketball. He earned a scholarship at Villanova, where he became a captain and later an assistant coach.

But the college experience, he later said, had an even more profound impact on Raveling.

“I’ve always felt like a sprinter who’d slipped at the starting box and was 20 yards behind everybody — I’ve been in a mad dash to catch up with everybody ever since,” Raveling told The Times in 1994. “My mom worked two jobs when I was a kid. There were no books in our house. Nobody envisioned that I’d graduate from college. No one even encouraged me to go to college.”

He’d spend the rest of his life, it seems, trying to make up for lost time.

Raveling was standing just a few feet away from King on the National Mall in Washington D.C. in 1963 as he delivered his famed “I Have A Dream” speech. King actually handed Raveling his copy of the historic speech immediately after he finished.

For decades, Raveling kept it tucked inside of a book, before recounting the story to a journalist. According to Sports Illustrated, a collector later offered Raveling $3 million for his copy of the speech. But he declined and donated it instead to Villanova.

George Raveling was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2015.

(Charles Krupa / Associated Press)

Raveling pioneered a path that few Black coaches ever had through his career. He was the first Black coach in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference when he started as an assistant in 1969. Three years later, at Washington State, he became the first Black coach to lead a Pac-8 (now Pac-12) Conference basketball team.

He coached at Iowa from 1983-86 before being hired at USC. At the time, the Trojans had a roster that included Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, who were coming off their freshman season. Raveling gave the players a firm deadline to tell him if they planned to remain on the team and when they didn’t he revoked their scholarships. Both went on to star at Loyola Marymount.

Raveling was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015. But as a “contributor”, not as a coach. Even while he was coaching, Raveling seemed to understand that his role meant more than that.

“Winning basketball games just helps you keep your job,” he told The Times in 1994. “But keeping your job helps you work with these kids about the real challenges of life, which all happen away from the court. I know there’s an enormous demand around here to win. But I don’t want someone to ask me what I accomplished in my life and for me to say that I won this amount of games or took a team to some tournament.

“If all I can say is that I taught a kid how to shoot a jump shot, well, that’s not good enough. These kids come out of underprivileged, inner-city areas, and I’m just wasting my time if I haven’t put something of substance into their lives.”

Ed Hodgkiss is no longer the football coach or co-athletic director at Bishop Montgomery. Principal Michele Starkey and president Patrick Lee made the announcement in a letter to parents on Saturday, writing Hodgkiss is “no longer employed at Bishop Montgomery.”

Bishop Montgomery and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles have been scrambling to deal with the fallout from weeks of turmoil in the football program.

It started with the Southern Section declaring five transfer students ineligible this season for violation of CIF bylaw 202, which is providing false information. Then the team had numerous players suspended after a first-game loss in Hawaii when they left the bench with 24 seconds left. That forced Bishop Montgomery to forfeit Friday’s game against Santa Ana Mater Dei because of a lack of players.

The Archdiocese announced it would conduct an investigation into the transfer issues.

Hodgkiss came to Bishop Montgomery in 2010 from the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League.

Bishop Montgomery changed principals and presidents last school year and appeared to move to a different sports philosophy, accepting numerous transfer students with the hope of elevating the football program to a higher level of competition. The school is scheduled to leave the Camino Real League after this season.

No new coach was announced. Messages left for Hodgkiss and Lee were not returned.

Rybakina, speaking at the Australian Open in January, said she never made “any complaints” about Vukov, adding: “I don’t agree with a lot of things the WTA do in the sense of my relationship with Stefano.”

Vukov challenged the WTA’s decision to issue the suspension and it was lifted after a hearing in front of an independent tribunal.

Following the appeal, the WTA told BBC Sport it is “fully committed to providing a safe and respectful environment for all athletes and other participants”.

The governing body added: “While case details remain confidential, we can confirm that Mr Vukov is eligible to receive credentials at WTA events. We will not be commenting further.”

With Vukov back in her corner, Rybakina reached the US Open fourth round for the first time in her career after impressively beating Britain’s Emma Raducanu on Friday.

Rybakina says she is feeling happier and healthier after overcoming insomnia, the sleep disorder which has troubled her in the past two years.

The issue led to her immune system breaking down and she decided to take an extended break from the WTA Tour at the end of last season.

After withdrawing before her 2024 US Open second-round match because of illness, Rybakina did not play again until November.

“Now it’s much better and I have no issues, so I’m pretty happy,” she added.

“I think we are managing and getting closer to where I want to be, physically also doing, I think, a pretty good job. Of course, it’s not much time between tournaments, but overall I’m happy with how the work is going right now.

“Things in the box definitely helps a lot, and I think it’s important when the whole team can support you.”

The metaphor feels almost too obvious, the iron-and-brick facade of a half-finished, $200-million football palace looming over Howard Jones Field. A chorus of construction equipment cuts through the chaos of a preseason football practice, the whole scene a reminder that USC, in Year 4 of the Lincoln Riley era, is building toward something.

Where USC’s football program stands in that building process is a bit more complicated to capture. After winning 11 games in Riley’s first season as USC’s coach, the Trojans’ win total has declined in each of the two seasons since. Riley, through 40 games at USC, now has one fewer win (26) than his predecessor, Clay Helton (27), did at the same point during their tenures.

But in recent months, a groundswell of momentum has been building at USC. During the offseason, the Trojans retained top-tier defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn in spite of serious advances from his alma mater, Penn State. They added a rising star in general manager Chad Bowden, who has been an adrenaline shot to the entire program. They surged to the top of the recruiting rankings for the class of 2026 and finally began setting the pace in the NIL space, where they once lagged far behind other programs of their stature.

The only pressing questions now for USC, it seems, are on the field. Even as enthusiasm builds for 2026 , when the football facility will open and the top recruiting class lands, the upcoming season is a critical one for Riley. A third consecutive disappointing campaign would force USC to face some uncomfortable truths, some of which the school can’t afford to confront.

“I just feel great about the progress that’s been made,” USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen told The Times. “And now we’re now in a position where our expectations are high. We all know what they are and that’s to win.”

The Times spoke to Cohen ahead of the Trojans’ season opener against Missouri State to discuss that progress and the expectations that come with it, for Riley and the program.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Where would you say the football program stands right now?

“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of momentum, in particular this offseason, with a combination of moves and investments on the retention side of the coaches that we already had that were doing a great job within our program and culture. Just the quality of coaches overall is at an all-time high in my opinion. So that’s one big piece that’s helped with the momentum.

“The second is the front office development and just the hiring of [general manager] Chad [Bowden]. Chad being able to restructure his team and also restructure how all of our coaches work, how he supports Lincoln, how he supports the assistant coaches — he’s more than just somebody that’s developing a roster. He’s really a culture guy, and he’s been a great partner for Lincoln and the staff in football, but he’s really been a great partner for all of us, and he’s done a lot of bridging of relationships, both internally and externally. And top of all that, obviously, we’ve seen the specific momentum of their skill set from a recruiting standpoint coming to fruition in this ‘26 class.

“So that’s huge progress and has really moved us in a direction that we really needed to go in. The facility investment has obviously been exciting. Watching Bloom grow that quickly and the fact these guys know now that it’s real and they’re gonna be in it this time next year, I think that’ll help us from a retention standpoint. We’ve made so much progress this past year in NIL and how we invest in our student athletes in football, and then obviously being in this new era now where we’re entered into NIL agreements directly with students, I just feel great about the progress that’s been made, and now we’re in a position where our expectations are high. We all know what they are, and that’s to win.”

USC football general manager Chad Bowden, left, speaks with coach Lincoln Riley during a team practice.

(USC Athletics)

We’re entering Year 4 with Lincoln Riley. In each of those seasons since he’s been here, his win-loss record has declined. What is your confidence level with him as coach as we start the season?

“We’re both aligned on the expectations that we have, and that’s to win. And Lincoln knows that. I know that. You know that. Our fans — everybody knows it. I would just say we’re really embracing those expectations together. I feel really good about the support and the infrastructure and the resources that he’s been provided. I know he’s energized by it. He’s motivated by it, and there’s nobody that wants to succeed more than Lincoln. I’m really excited for us to get behind him and the guys and the staff and see those results.”

What sort of tangible results do you need to see from Lincoln and the program to maintain that confidence?

“The whole idea here, right, is that we’re going to win. Our goal and our standard here is that we win championships. That’s what we’re working towards, and that’s what we’ve invested in, and that’s what my expectation is, his expectation is, our collective expectation is as a Trojan family. We haven’t even played a game yet. My focus right now is on supporting him, supporting our coaches, supporting our student athletes and really just moving this program forward — moving this whole athletic department forward. This is a completely different era that we’re in, and we’re laser focused. And I’m laser-focused on pulling every lever that I can and we can for this program to succeed and for all of our programs to succeed.”

Crenshaw High has started its football season 2-0 but has done so without longtime head coach Robert Garrett.

Terrance Whitehead has been serving as interim head coach and running practices.

In a phone call Friday, Garrett said, “I’m just following [school] orders. There’s no wrongdoing on my part.”

Garrett, who has been head coach since 1988, entered this season with 290 career victories.

Crenshaw interim coach Terrance Whitehead speaking with quarterback Daniell Flowers.

(Robert H. Helfman)

Asked when he might return, Garrett said his absence is “indefinite.”

A call and an email to the district office, which was closed Friday, went unanswered.

Crenshaw plays Hamilton next week.

Tom Brady will have fewer NFL-imposed restrictions on him this season as he enters his second year as an analyst on games broadcast on Fox.

The restrictions were placed on the legendary quarterback last August when his purchase of a 10% stake in the Las Vegas Raiders was pending approval from the league owners. Brady’s minority stake was approved in October.

One of the so-called Brady Rules enacted by the NFL prohibited the rookie broadcaster from attending production meetings during which the Fox crew meets with coaches and players ahead of that week’s game.

That retriction has been lifted, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed to The Times on Wednesday morning.

There is one caveat, however — Brady must attend those meetings remotely. He is still prohibited from going to a team facility for practices or production meetings, McCarthy said.

Brady is allowed to interview players off site, as he did on occassion last year, McCarthy said.

Like last year, Brady can’t “egregiously criticize officials,” said McCarthy, who added there were no issues along those lines in 2024.

Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was allowed by the league to attend the production meetings ahead of Super Bowl LIX in February.

The Athletic was first to report the loosening of the restrictions on Brady.