lincoln riley

Lincoln Riley can’t tell you who for sure will be at quarterback for Indiana when USC meets the defending national champions this weekend. And Indiana coach Curt Cignetti has kept things pretty close to the vest over whether it’ll be Josh Hoover, the usual starter, or Grant Wilson, the seventh-year backup.

“We could spend our time speculating back and forth who it’s going to be,” Riley said. “I doubt we’re going to see some radically different offense based on who the quarterback is.”

His calm comes from the fact that under-center uncertainty is nothing new at this point for No. 18 USC. Riley has spent pretty much the entire season preparing for opponents racked by quarterback questions.

It wasn’t clear, back in Week 1, who would be under center for Fresno State. Nor was it obvious two weeks later if Rutgers was sticking with its original starting quarterback.

Oregon got only three drives out of its top passer, Dante Moore, against USC before his injury thrust No. 2 Dylan Raiola into action. And a month after that, an injury to Ohio State star Julian Sayin left USC to face his backup, Luke Fahey, whom the Trojans terrorized.

It’s still up in the air if Hoover, who came to Indiana as a top transfer, will be healthy enough coming out of Indiana’s bye. Banged up for most of the past month, Hoover was replaced by Wilson in the Hoosiers’ last game before the bye. And Wilson proceeded to bring Indiana back from the brink in an overtime win over Minnesota.

Hoover wasn’t listed with any injury designation on the Big Ten’s availability reports this week. But over his last four games, Hoover has completed only 48% of his passes; clearly, he was affected by injury.

“We’ll see how the week plays out, and we’ll see who we trot out there,” Cignetti said Monday.

Indiana quarterback Grant Wilson runs with the ball during a win over Howard in September.

(Doug McSchooler / Associated Press)

Whoever plays quarterback for No. 9 Indiana will have an array of weapons at their disposal, including star wideout Charlie Becker, who’s tracking to be a top-15 pick in the 2027 NFL draft. Though, that part should be nothing new, either, given USC’s recent work against Ohio State and the presumptive No. 1 pick Jeremiah Smith.

“Real physical guy, has some great speed, a really experienced receiver,” cornerback Chasen Johnson said. “That’s going to be a great matchup.”

How well Indiana is able to move the ball could decide not just the Big Ten race but both teams’ College Football Playoff fates. With a loss in Bloomington, USC would be knocked out of contention, reigniting questions about Riley’s future. With a win, USC would be propelled into the playoff conversation.

That would leave only No. 4 UCLA — and another backup quarterback, Ty Dieffenbach — standing in the Trojans’ way.

Meanwhile, USC quarterback Jayden Maiava remains the most consistent — and healthy — passer in the conference. Even if he hasn’t seemed all that consistent — or healthy — by his standards.

“He’s in a great place mentally,” Riley said. “He’s in a great place physically right now. He’s had some bumps and bruises along the year, but right now he’s as healthy as he’s been in terms of his body feeling good. He’s ready to roll, and I think he’s gearing up to play extremely well in this last stretch.”

Credit to Lincoln Riley. USC’s embattled football coach stood and stared directly at what could have been the death knell for his Trojans tenure and said: Not today.

Actually, he said more than that after his unranked Trojans upset No. 2 Ohio State, 30-18 on Saturday.

He had a whole statement prepared to read at the end of his postgame news conference.

“I got one other thing I want to say here,” said Riley, whose victory kept alive the Trojans’ hopes of making the College Football Playoff for the first time on his watch. “I want to make sure to articulate my thoughts.

“This program’s not built on internal joy — excuse me, is built on internal joy — not external applause. This win’s for all the staff members, the players, the leaders, admin, all the people within the walls.

“I said before this game, that I’m the right person for this job, and as long as all those people know that, that’s all I care about.

“I appreciate being a part of this university and all it does. I appreciate our kids and our staff, and I’m going to continue to fight on because that’s what being a Trojan’s all about. Fight On.”

Then he stood and punctuated his address: “Adios.”

The way USC dismantled a Buckeyes team that was considered one of the leading national championship contenders this zany college football season, Riley deserved to crow.

The way his team refused to let go of the rope — even with their head coach on the ropes, Riley deserved a victory lap.

It’s just that before sharing his statement, he didn’t seem all that interested in taking it.

He began his news conference looking, appropriately, to lend perspective to the victory — his first in his USC tenure against a top-10 team — in which the Trojans exploded on a Buckeyes team that hadn’t given up more than 24 points in a game since losing to Oregon 32-31 on Oct. 12, 2024.

“Every win’s important,” said Riley, whose overall record at USC in his fifth season is now 42-20. “When you get a chance, like tonight, to play a really good football team — one of the best programs in America over a long, long period of time — those are great opportunities.”

He gave deserved kudos to his team for staying together and responding after last week’s disappointing 24-7 loss at Wisconsin. And reiterated his usual message, win or lose: “I know what’s building within those walls. Like, I know it. All my years of experience and all that I’ve kind of seen and got to experience in this game tells me that. I believe that with every fiber in my being.”

USC coach Lincoln Riley watches his players warm up before facing Ohio State at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Saturday’s victory won’t necessarily be good news for dissatisfied fans rooting for Riley’s ouster. But it was big for anyone partial to a good comeback story — and for those tenuous CFP prospects.

“I keep saying, look at all the craziness across the country,” Riley said. “The teams that just hang in there, keep going, get better, stay together, are going to be the ones that are there in the end.”

The Trojans could be one of those teams. They should be, in fact.

They have the talent, as we saw Saturday when previously injured freshmen Trent Mosley and Mark Bowman gashed a Buckeyes defense that hadn’t allowed a play longer than 36 yards all season with plays of 69 and 70 yards.

And they have the fortitude, as we witnessed when USC’s defense forced Ohio State to settle for a field goal after they had first and goal at the one-yard line late in the second quarter: “Grit play, a toughness deal. A mindset thing,” defensive tackle Alex VanSumeren said.

What made the Trojans’ previous losses so galling was the gauntlet ahead of them, starting with Ohio State.

Before, we wondered: If they couldn’t beat Oregon and its backup quarterback at home, how the heck were they going to beat Ohio State (and its understudy QB, Mission Viejo’s Luke Fahey)?

Earlier, we asked: If Wisconsin was going to force them into the worst offensive showing in the Riley era, what was defending national champion Indiana going to do to them?

And, of course: If they were just sneaking by struggling teams like Rutgers, Penn State and Washington, what chance was there that they could surprise still-undefeated UCLA?

But now, after Saturday’s sensational showing, we’ll spend next week’s bye and then the week ahead of their game in Bloomington against the Hoosiers — who escaped Saturday with a 23-16 overtime win over Minnesota — doing the math and wondering why can’t USC knock off another top-five team?

USC linebackers Ta’mere Robinson, left, and Jadyn Walker leap in celebration following a 30-18 win over Ohio State on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

And if the Trojans can beat Indiana, why can’t they beat the 8-0 Bruins, who have been taking care of business against opponents who have no business beating them, like Nevada on Saturday, 27-0?

Because the Trojans haven’t folded. In fact, things went so well on this rainy Halloween evening — which ended with pirates and princesses and people in all varieties of costume celebrating on the field with the players — you might have started to wonder whether they had been bluffing.

Just like we assume Riley is bluffing whenever he talks about being able to block out “the noise.”

He might not want to worry himself with the “external applause,” but if he wants to fight on at USC, he’s going to need to continue earning it.

When NBC’s production team came to meet with Lincoln Riley, ahead of a broadcast earlier this month, the USC football coach greeted the group like old friends.

“Look,” Riley joked, “the Trojan Network is back.”

He certainly should be familiar with the group by now, given that this week’s matchup with No. 2 Ohio State marks the sixth time in nine games that USC will be featured on NBC. That’s already tied for the most any one network has aired a Big Ten team since 2024, when the conference expanded to 18 teams.

“We certainly feel like we’re the voice of the Trojans at the moment,” Noah Eagle, NBC’s lead play-by-play announcer, told The Times prior to USC’s loss to Wisconsin last week.

It’s certainly an ironic match, considering NBC’s longtime affiliation with the Trojans’ bitter rival, Notre Dame. But going all-in on the Cardinal and Gold wasn’t necessarily the network’s plan going into the season, according to Justin Byczek, NBC’s executive vice president of programming and rights management. It just worked out that way.

“It’s effectively a draft, and we’re trying to look at different weeks and prioritize,” Byczek said. “One of the first things that jumped out at us was how important that Oregon game is going to be. So that was something that we had in our back pocket going into the draft.”

When the three networks divided up the Big Ten’s TV games last spring, Byczek said NBC also zeroed in on that game, as well as USC’s matchups with Ohio State and Penn State, knowing both would fit well featured in prime time.

Just by virtue of its geography and its brand, USC makes for a natural fit in NBC’s prime time slot (7:30/4:30 p.m. ET/PT), similar to how FOX’s Big Noon Saturday regularly features Ohio State in its early window.

Those prime-time matchups featuring the Trojans, though, have lagged a bit behind other top teams from the Big Ten and SEC. USC’s matchup with Oregon drew the largest audience of its season to date, with 5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock. That’s the only time this season that a USC game has finished in the top five of the week’s most viewed games, according to Nielsen data.

That’s a conference-wide issue. The Big Ten has only had the week’s most-watched game twice this season, once on CBS (Ohio State-Iowa in Week 5) and another time on Fox (Ohio State-Indiana, Week 7). Otherwise, ABC has dominated, with upwards of 10 million tuning in most weeks to the network’s prime-time game.

So, in order to compete with ABC in prime time, NBC is betting on Lincoln Riley and the Trojans as its West Coast anchor.

“Because they’re intriguing — not only in Los Angeles, but nationally,” Eagle said. “College football fans want to see if they can get over the hump. Can Lincoln Riley get them there?”

That question will no doubt come up on the broadcast this week. And with three Big Ten games still left after that, you can bet it won’t be the last time we hear it asked on NBC.