“I think that comes from a lot of people who don’t follow our program, most of those who have never stepped foot in the Coliseum,” Riley said. “The reality is, during my years here, attendance has gone up every single year. As has our play in the Coliseum, including running the table last year in front of a lot of epic atmospheres. And I expect that to happen again this year.”
Average attendance for USC football games at the Coliseum actually dropped from the 2024 to the 2025 season, from an average of 71,571 to 67,783. But the 2025 season also featured fewer marquee home matchups, plus one game soaked by heavy rain (Iowa), and it was still the second-best average attendance of Riley’s four seasons as coach.
Saturday, though, marked the smallest home crowd at USC since late in the 2018 season, when the Trojans had their worst finish for the program in a quarter century, under former coach Clay Helton.
Much of that was due to the scorching heat throughout the Southland, which reached a heat index about 100 at the Coliseum on Saturday. It was so hot and humid that Lee Feaster, a native Texas and the father of freshman wideout Boobie Feaster, said on Tuesday that his wife passed out during the game and still had blisters.
But the attendance announced by USC — 51,144 — admittedly felt generous.
Attendance was that low just once under Helton, for a 38-35 loss to Arizona State, the weekend before Halloween in 2018. But average attendance plummeted after the 2017 season as fan sentiment turned on Helton. For the rest of Helton’s tenure, from 2018 to the start of 2021, USC reached the 60,000-fan mark just four times.
Empty swaths of Coliseum bleachers hadn’t been as much of a concern for Riley, who had never fallen below the 60,000-fan mark at home until Saturday. But as photos of the poor attendance circulated on social media during the weekend, USC chose to release a statement responding to the online derision.
“We understand the factors that impacted Saturday’s attendance,” the statement read. “We have high expectations and a premier home schedule this season, and we know the competitive advantage an electric Coliseum atmosphere can provide our program. We thank our fans who showed up Saturday and look forward to seeing increased attendance the rest of the season.”
The response, though, only poured gasoline on a viral fire.
By Monday, the conversation had crossed over from critical posts on social media to Riley’s coaching peers roasting USC, starting with his alma mater.
“Not to take any shots because I have a lot of respect for USC and Lincoln Riley, but man it’s really awesome to be playing Lubbock, Texas, in front of 60,000,” Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said. “And it’s going to be warm. It’s going to be every bit as warm as it was Saturday. The great thing is we’ve got some really tough people in West Texas that love their football. They’re gonna show up no matter what the weather’s like. There’s not going to be any excuses of why they’re not here for us.”
A fan covers takes cover under a poster during USC’s season opener against San José State Saturday at the Coliseum.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
New California coach Tosh Lupoi piled on some more Tuesday.
“To turn on the TV, to see that environment in Los Angeles, that’s disheartening to see,” Lupoi said in Berkeley. “I can guarantee you, that’s a completely different environment here.”
USC should have a much more temperate environment to play on Friday, when it kicks off against Fresno State at 6 p.m. at the Coliseum. And Riley knows the world will be watching closely, to see how many seats are filled for the Trojans’ second game.
“This is USC, right?” Riley said. “People are going to pay attention. People are going to have an opinion. It’s part of being a blueblood school.”
Josh Jacobs’ court appearance on two misdemeanor charges resulting from an alleged altercation with his girlfriend in May isn’t until Nov. 27. The Green Bay Packers, the team for which he stars at running back, will have played 11 regular season games by then.
That means the NFL will likely determine whether to let him play before knowing the outcome of his criminal case.
Jacobs was placed on the commissioner‘s exempt list, the league announced Sunday. He is not allowed to play or even practice — although he will be paid — and only commissioner Roger Goodell can remove him from it.
Former USC running back Marshawn Lloyd is expected to get the first shot at filling Jacobs’ shoes when the Packers open at the Minnesota Vikings on Sept. 13. Lloyd was a third-round pick in 2024 after leading the Trojans with 820 rushing yards and nine touchdowns. He averaged 7.1 yards per carry and 17.8 yards on 13 receptions.
Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs during training camp in Ashwaubenon, Wis.
(Abbie Parr/Associated Press)
Injuries have kept Lloyd off the field for all but one game in his two seasons with the Packers. However, he has been healthy throughout training camp and worked with the first-team offense while Jacobs was slowed by a groin injury.
Lloyd will have competition. Shortly after Jacobs was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list Sunday, Green Bay acquired second-year running back Kaleb Johnson from the Pittsburgh Steelers. Johnson was a third-round pick out of Iowa, where he led the Big Ten with 1,537 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns in 2025. He rushed for only 69 yards with the Steelers last season, seeing action mainly on special teams.
Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said last week that the team was preparing for Jacobs serving a potential suspension.
“We’ll deal with that when that comes, but we’ve obviously prepared for [a suspension] in case that happens,” he said. “But at the same time I feel really good about the guys we’ve got in that room, and I think we can survive that.”
The only other running back on the roster besides Lloyd and Johnson is Chris Brooks, who served primarily as a blocking back and special teams contributor last season.
Jacobs’ attorneys released a statement underscoring that the NFL is reviewing his case. The time spent on the commissioner’s exempt list would be counted toward any suspension, although he would have to pay back salary earned while on the list.
“Josh Jacobs has been placed on the commissioner’s exempt list, which is an administrative procedure used by the NFL while a matter is being reviewed,” the statement read. “It is not a final determination. Josh respects the NFL process, the Packers, and his coaches and teammates. He looks forward to his return to the team and the NFL.”
Jacobs was formally charged Thursday with misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor criminal damage to property, stemming from the May 23 incident at his home near Green Bay. The Brown County (Wis.) District Attorney’s Office released an incident report that describes video footage taken inside Jacobs’ garage. A felony and four misdemeanor charges pertaining to domestic violence were dropped.
Jacobs and his girlfriend quarreled over content on both of their phones, according to the report, and video from the garage allegedly shows that Jacobs grabbed her, threw her to the ground and she struck her head.
Packers coach Matt LaFleur said Friday that he expects Jacobs to remain with the franchise regardless of the outcome of the case. Jacobs would be subject to a fine of no more than $10,000 and no more than nine months in jail if he is convicted.
A quartet of true freshmen pass-catchers trotted onto the Coliseum field around noon Saturday, taking their places to either flank of USC’s far-older quarterback. None of the four — neither Trent Mosley, nor Kayden Dixon-Wyatt nor Tron Baker or Mark Bowman — had ever played in a college football game. But the significance of their presence, on the first play of an especially critical campaign for USC and its coach, Lincoln Riley, was no small thing.
This USC season, if only by sheer numbers, is sure to be defined by how fast its freshmen can grow up, which, after Saturday’s season-opening, 42-26 win over San José State, might not sound so bad after all.
First impressions, of course, can only say so much. With redshirts no longer a concern, Riley had promised to acclimate as many young players as possible. He stuck to a mostly conservative play script, leaning on the run and relying primarily on short passes through the air. Still, USC tallied more than 500 total yards in a mostly ho-hum debut, with star quarterback Jayden Maiava completing 25 of 29 passes for 286 yards and three total touchdowns.
However, there were also plenty of glimpses that suggest the kids will be all right.
The most memorable came from Mosley, who took off with his first-ever collegiate punt and ping-ponged his way down the field, refusing to go down until he gained 41 yards.
It was just the start for the former Santa Margarita High standout. In the second quarter, Mosley caught a pass over the middle and broke three tackles for 33 yards. In the third, he burst open in the red zone and reeled in a 14-yard touchdown. He finished with seven catches for 118 yards and a touchdown, becoming the first Power Four freshman receiver to meet those marks in a debut since Purdue’s Rondale Moore in 2018.
There were standout moments for other members of the Trojans’ 2026 class, too. Defensive end Luke Wafle looked unblockable at times off the edge. Dixon-Wyatt dusted his defender off the line to catch a red-zone slant for a score. And quarterback-of-the-future Jonas Williams led a seamless fourth-quarter scoring drive.
USC wide receiver Trent Mosley breaks a tackle by San José State linebacker John Norwood during the first quarter Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
But arguably the most encouraging results for USC came on the defensive end, where, for one half at least, Gary Patterson’s unit stood strong in his debut as Trojans defensive coordinator.
USC didn’t allow the Spartans to score until midway through the third quarter, when they opted for a field goal, down four touchdowns, just to wipe the zero off the scoreboard. San José State added another score after that, albeit long after USC’s starters had been replaced.
The defense held San José State to just 102 yards in the first half. It also gave up just 93 yards on the ground.
USC was at its best early, even with its fleet of freshmen needing time to find their footing. The Trojans immediately ripped off a 13-play touchdown drive to start the game. Fans were still filing in, braving 90-degree heat with novelty beer swords in hand, as Maiava moved USC methodically down the field, punching in a one-yard keeper for an early score.
A fourth-down stop at the goal line gave San José State a brief respite from USC piling on points. But Wafle, the five-star pass rusher, nearly added to the scoreboard anyway, when he slipped past the Spartans’ right tackle on third down, blew up the Spartan running back, and came up a split second short of a safety.
USC quarterback Jayden Maiava, right, hands off the ball to running back Riley Wormley during the second quarter Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
USC still turned the sterling field position into points. While Waymond Jordan and King Miller did most of the damage on the ground, combining for 111 yards, redshirt freshman Riley Wormley was the first USC running back to score. He was one of five to see work Saturday.
Miller led the way, with 63 yards. And he added his touchdown later, just before the half, as the Trojans took a 28-0 lead into the locker room.
San José State played USC a lot closer after that, actually outscoring the Trojans 26-14 in the second half.
It was the sort of lacking finish that probably left both Riley and Patterson wanting a bit more. But as far as first impressions go, it did the job for one Saturday at least.
From behind his new desk, on the top floor of USC’s shining, new Bloom Football Performance Center, Lincoln Riley can gaze out upon a stunning view of the downtown L.A. skyline. It’s a nice perk when rounding out a $200-million facility.
And especially welcomed given that three-quarters of USC’s previous football home, the John McKay Center, could be classified as “subterranean.” But as Riley considers how far he’s come these past five years and how far USC has come in the meantime, the metaphor is just as meaningful to USC’s coach as the cityscape.
This view, this office, this program, really — it was all just a hypothetical when Riley accepted the USC job in November 2021. The wunderkind coach knew he was inheriting a football program in a years-long slump. What he couldn’t grasp was how far it actually fell. And what it would take to drag it back. He’d never even been on USC’s campus.
He admits he didn’t understand quite what USC needed then, in the beginning. Not like he does now, on the doorstep of his fifth season as the Trojans coach.
“There’s no other job like this, not in our sport,” Riley said Thursday. “There are some unique things that make this place really special, but also you have to understand how it works and how to harness it and how to use it, and I think that has probably been the biggest thing.”
“I know what direction we’re heading now. I know so much more about this place and how it works, and that’s been more helpful than just starting over at kind of your normal run-of-the-mill job in college football. … This one is just so unique and different. That’s what attracted me to it. And that’s what’s going to help make it great again.”
Riley certainly knows USC well enough now to understand his time to deliver on that promise is running out. The Trojans are 35-18 through four seasons under Riley, precisely the same record they were under his predecessor, Clay Helton, through 53 games. In that time, USC has yet to reach the College Football Playoff and only once played for a conference title, in Riley’s first season. And it hasn’t beat a ranked team in a true road game outside of L.A.
Meanwhile, the school has gone to great lengths to close the gap that existed between USC and its blueblood counterparts, revamping the whole front-office operation, hiring a Hall of Famer in Gary Patterson to coordinate the defense and investing millions in NIL in the nation’s top recruiting class in 2026.
Riley said multiple times this summer that he is now more “well-equipped” to win. And around USC, everyone seems inclined to agree. Meaning any excuse for why the Trojans aren’t breaking through will no longer suffice.
“It’s black and white,” USC general manager Chad Bowden said after last season. “You’re either in the Playoff or you’re not. You either win a championship or you don’t. … I’m sick to my stomach, you know, for people that might be unhappy with winning nine games. They should be unhappy, right?”
Whether nine wins in 2026 would be enough to ensure Riley sees a sixth season at USC in 2027 remains to be seen. Though, just getting back to that mark, with a schedule that includes Oregon and Ohio State at home and Indiana and Penn State on the road, might be more of an uphill climb than it was a season ago.
It would also probably mean falling short of the Playoff. When asked if Riley needed a Playoff berth this season, athletic director Jennifer Cohen told The Times in May she “tries not to think in hypotheticals” but added:
“The expectation has always been the same. I mean, that’s the thing, that’s the reason why I came here, is that the standard is high, that we do expect to make the Playoff. We do expect to have a championship run. We do expect to be competing for championships every single year.
“The expectation, I mean, we haven’t been shy about that. We expect to win, and I feel confident that we’re going to.”
So confident, in fact, that USC pasted its season mantra on billboards across the Southland, each of them not-so-subtly declaring that the “THE TIME IS : NOW”.
The message feels, in many ways, meant for Riley. And he isn’t shying away from it.
“Hell, that’s why I came here,” Riley told The Times this summer. “It’s progressively gotten better and better, I think to a point where everybody should be excited and the expectations should be through the roof.”
It’s hard to argue with the positive signs so far. The No. 1 recruiting class is already making a major impression, with five true freshmen earning starting spots and over a dozen appearing on the initial two-deep. With a top returning quarterback in Jayden Maiava, real depth along the offensive line and one of the Big Ten’s best backfield tandems in Waymond Jordan and King Miller, USC should once again have one of the nation’s top offenses.
The questions, as always, are on the other side of the ball. But in Patterson, Riley appears so far to have found someone he considers an equal on defense, the yin to his yang.
“You feel his presence in terms of the mentality of the group and how he pushes and pushes and pushes,” Riley said. “He’s very aggressive, and you never have to wonder about how he’s feeling or where he stands. For a little bit, I think it took our players some getting used to. It was a little different of an approach than what they had out of that position. But I think they’ve come to understand and respect the intensity that he brings every day and the demand for greatness. There’s no question on the practice field that you feel that from him.”
Riley, meanwhile, has not seemed like a head coach who’s feeling the heat heading into a make-or-break season at USC. In fact, with everything hanging on this season, he seems more at ease than ever.
“It’s taken a lot to come from where it was four years ago to now, a lot of people,” Riley said. “And so, I don’t want us to be bashful about it now. We’ve gotta go do it. And that’s the fun part of this. And it’s fun feeling like that you got the opportunity to do anything and everything that you want to do.
“I think this year will be the start of a run where USC football, we’re gonna feel like that for a while. That’s what we came here to do.”
USC sophomore defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, who was spotted over the weekend sporting crutches and a boot on his injured right foot, is expected to miss the Trojans’ season opener against San Jose State, coach Lincoln Riley said.
Losing Stewart for longer than that would be a bitter pill for USC to swallow at the start of a highly anticipated season. But while reports have suggested that Stewart is likely to miss USC’s entire nonconference slate with the injury, Riley suggested Tuesday that he could debut as soon as the following Friday, when USC takes on Fresno State in its second game of the season.
“What he’s dealing with right now is minor,” Riley said. “The plan is to probably hold him and I think he’ll be able from that point forward. But it’s certainly not long term. A little precautionary right now.”
Stewart played through a stress fracture in his foot throughout his freshman season after suffering the injury in August. He missed the season opener then as well, but elected not to have surgery, in order to keep contributing to the team.
“I could have got surgery, but I wouldn’t have felt comfortable,” Stewart said earlier this month. “I wouldn’t have felt complete as a human, knowing that I still had stuff in the tank that I could have gave to my team.”
Stewart ended up getting surgery on his foot in December. But when Stewart spoke to reporters during camp, he said his foot felt “1,000%”
But the concern now, as Stewart continues to deal with a foot issue, is whether this injury could continue to linger beyond just a game or two of his sophomore season.
Riley was not sounding that alarm Tuesday. But he also didn’t rule out the possibility that USC may be managing the situation throughout this season.
“We just gotta watch it,” Riley said. “Everybody is different in terms of their size, their biomechanics in terms of how they run and especially guys like Jahkeem who are pretty violent in the way they move and transfer energy on the ground — like there’s some force going into the ground. So yeah, I think some of these injuries are freak things that happen from time to time in this game, that’s part of it. And then there are things that as guys go, and as their bodies evolve and get bigger and stronger, you have to make adjustments on and they have to make adjustments on.”
USC was especially cautious with Stewart’s injury during the week last season, which led Stewart to sit out a significant number of practices. He still played in 11 games, missing the opener and the bowl game. But on average, Stewart played just 21 snaps per game as a freshman.
He was still named a freshman All-American, in spite of the difficult circumstances. All signs pointed toward him taking a major leap as a sophomore.
This latest injury could throw a wrench in that. But Riley expressed confidence in the depth of USC’s defensive interior, which was not something he could’ve said even this time last year.
“We’ve had some young guys emerge in that room, especially who are going to command some looks and some opportunities to play and go prove themselves on Saturdays here right away, and then you combine it with the experience we have in that room,” Riley said.
“We’ll have a good healthy rotation and be able to withstand any dings along the way.”
Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where I am thrilled to announce that the start of the USC football season is here. And a week before the rest of college football, no less!
We’ve reminded you enough by now that this is a make-or-break season for USC and for its head coach, Lincoln Riley. With a new defensive coordinator who’s in the College Football Hall of Fame, a new, state-of-the-art football facility and the nation’s top recruiting class in tow, USC has given Riley everything he needs to succeed.
So what if … he actually does?
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Last week, we walked you through the worst-case scenario for USC’s 2026 slate. So this week, let’s put on our cardinal-and-gold colored glasses and consider what this season might look like if everything actually goes right. Because there’s certainly a world in which USC earns a place in the College Football Playoff. Maybe even wins a game or two (or three?).
That picture-perfect scenario, however, hinges in my mind on how fast USC’s stellar freshman class rounds into form.
Imagine for a minute a Trojans defense with Luke Wafle, the nation’s top prospect in 2026, screaming off the edge a la the Bosa Bros at Ohio State. Or what about “Boobie” Feaster, the Trojans’ 17-year-old stud wideout, taking a tunnel screen to the house through the teeth of Oregon’s defense?
USC hasn’t had this much talent on the roster since I started covering the team in 2019. And while it’s fair to be hesitant about relying on so many freshmen, what if, when push comes to shove, they’re just the best players on the team?
It’s not hard to envision that being the case at wide receiver, at tight end and even along the defensive line. Freshmen could even be starting, at some point, on the offensive line, at linebacker and in the defensive backfield. (OK, this might not sound like a best-case yet, but bear with me here …)
USC has the first three weeks of its season to let the freshmen figure it out, followed by a trip across the country to Rutgers, and with no redshirts to worry about, I’d venture to say we’ll see the full breadth of freshmen Trojan talent over those four games. If USC can emerge from that stretch with the confidence of its young players soaring, then it should have a shot when Oregon comes to town.
If there’s one game that could decide the direction of USC’s season, it’s this one. It’s a critical moment for quarterback Jayden Maiava, who had his worst game of the year a season ago in Eugene. Any world in which USC makes a playoff run must include a major leap from Maiava. This is his time to prove that he’s taken that last step in his game, the one that could truly separate him as a first-round NFL draft pick. He has the talent, and in this case, he’ll have to show every bit of it.
Meanwhile, USC’s defense could cast some doubt on the potential of the Ducks’ own quarterback with a promising performance here. Dante Moore has yet to face a ranked team in a true road environment as Oregon’s starter. And the Coliseum is going to be rocking that night. I could see him slipping up on the road.
If Maiava can play to his potential and the defense can rise to the occasion, USC can beat Oregon for the first time in a decade. And if it does, a world of possibilities open up for USC.
With the confidence of its fabulous freshmen soaring, USC rolls through Washington at home. A trip to Penn State, during what’s sure to be a White Out game, marks the second moment in which the Trojans’ young stars could be seriously tested. But who’s to say that the Nittany Lions, under Matt Campbell, have anywhere close to the talent the Trojans will bring to State College. And without its usual pass rush, I could see Maiava picking Penn State apart.
Wins over Maryland and on the road at Wisconsin are locks in this scenario, as is a stomping of crosstown rival UCLA and new coach Bob Chesney.
So what about Ohio State and Indiana, our last two national title winners? The more winnable of those two, in my opinion, is the Halloween home game with Ohio State, considering the questions on the Buckeyes’ defense. But Ohio State is still the deeper, more talented team, and by that point in the season, injuries will have surely affected USC’s roster.
As for Indiana, well, not only have the Hoosiers not lost at home under Curt Cignetti, but they’ve allowed just 10 points per game over Cignetti’s 15 home games as coach. USC has to slip up somewhere in the schedule, and my bet would be Bloomington.
Ten wins would surely secure USC its first-ever Playoff spot, delivering the statement that Riley so desperately needed in his fifth season. And if by this point, its fleet of freshmen just happen to be peaking, then there’s no telling how far this team could go from there.
Thanos down
Jahkeem Stewart (4) reacts against the Michigan State Spartans last season.
(Luke Hales / Getty Images)
In a brutal twist of fate for USC, just ahead of its Week 0 opener, defensive tackle Jahkeem Stewart is now likely to miss the nonconference slate with a foot injury.
It’s terrible news for the sophomore standout and for USC, which needs all the talent it can get along the defensive line. Stewart’s participation throughout camp had been a bit inconsistent already, presumably in an effort to keep him fresh for the season.
The fact that he’s likely to miss the first three games isn’t so much the main concern here. It’s that foot injuries are notoriously tricky. We don’t have much information on whether this was a aggravation or an entirely new problem, but a source downplayed the current injury’s severity. Still, it’s not a great sign for a player that was expected, at least by me, to be all-conference caliber this season.
Does Riley have any interest in adding old Trojans to the roster?
A court ruling bafflingly cleared the way last week for players who have already signed with NFL teams to gain some added college eligibility. And while no one has been added to the mix yet, USC’s coach said this week he wasn’t against adding under the right circumstances.
“Addition doesn’t always mean necessarily making you better, right?” Riley said. “And we feel very strongly about the group that we’ve put together, we feel very strongly about the kind of culture and attitude and vibe of this team right now, and so first and foremost, we’re going to protect that.”
Other than at linebacker, where USC would have to add someone new from the transfer portal midseason, or because of injuries, I don’t see a scenario in which it would really make sense. Anthony Lucas or Lake McRee just don’t move the needle at this point.
Class of ‘26 power rankings: Week 0
USC signed the top-ranked class last recruiting cycle, so as they finally hit the field, the Times of Troy will keep tabs on their progress by doing what we do best: Ranking their performance! In this case, we’ll rank them based on the freshmen we most expect to make a difference when USC kicks off against San José State.
Trent Mosley at USC spring football practice.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
1. Luke Wafle, DE … the No. 1 overall prospect in 2026 should get plenty of run coming off the edge in these first few games. I wouldn’t be surprised if, over that stretch, he makes it impossible to keep him on the bench.
2. Trent Mosley, WR. Seemingly locked into a starting job since the spring, Mosley is 20 years old and much further along than most freshmen when it comes to football IQ. He could lead the team in targets if all breaks right.
3. Mark Bowman, TE. Bowman was in and out of practice through camp, which might be the only thing keeping him from the No. 1 spot on this list. Don’t be surprised if the breakout doesn’t come right away as he gets into the swing of things.
4. Kayden Dixon-Wyatt, WR. A standout of camp with Tanook Hines sidelined, Dixon-Wyatt should be thrust into a big role right away. He’s a big play waiting to happen, and of all the freshmen position players, he’s the one I’d expect to wow us first.
5. Elbert “Rock” Hill, CB. Another standout of camp, Hill is behind two surefire starters in Jontez Williams and Chasen Johnson. But from what we’ve seen and heard, the freshman cornerback is way ahead of schedule.
6. Boobie Feaster, WR. Feaster is so young — just turned 17 — but his talent is undeniable. He has the potential to be the No. 1 guy on this list by season’s end.
7. Tomuhini “Tom Tom” Topui, DT. Stewart’s injury could open the door for more young guys on the interior, including Topui, who really impressed me in the scrimmage and has been receiving rave reviews from teammates.
8. Talanoa Ili, LB. In a linebacker room with shallow depth, don’t be surprised if Ili emerges early. I like what I’ve seen.
9. Madden Riordan, S. One of the bigger surprises in the class, Riordan added critical weight and now should play a part in the defensive back rotation. Being 20 already helps.
10. Breck Kolojay, OG. Kolojay was a major standout of spring, then cooled in camp while dealing with injuries. He’s likely a next-man-up option on the offensive interior.
11. Tron Baker, WR. Baker has a lot of other freshman wideouts ahead of him on this list, but we’ve heard his name a lot listed among young players who impressed.
12. Deshonne Redeaux, RB/KR. I really like Redeaux’s smooth, effortless running style, and while he’s down the depth chart at running back, he could right away be the kick returner.
Poll results
We asked, “What is the fewest number of wins you’d accept from Riley and USC without calling for a change?” After 1,507 votes, the results:
Nine wins, 35.6% 10 wins/playoff appearance, 27.9% Eight wins, 24.6% Seven wins, 8.8% Six wins, 3.1%
Olympic sports spotlight
Jane Alukonis was named the Big Ten women’s soccer coach of the year in 2024, but the Trojans trudged their way to a 7-7-3 finish in 2025 and have a lot to prove as their 2026 season begins.
Lucky for Alukonis, she brings in the No. 1-ranked recruiting class in the nation according to Prep Soccer, a class highlighted by forward Jordan Hill, the No. 3 overall prospect, and defender Rhiannon Mahon, the No. 5 overall prospect.
But the Trojans were still picked in the preseason to finish seventh in the Big Ten. And with losses to Duke and Brigham Young already, USC is already facing an uphill climb to start the season.
What I’m Watching This Week
Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs in “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
(Macall Polay / 20th Century Studios)
No one told me before I watched “TheDevil Wears Prada 2” on a plane last weekend that it was a journalism movie! But even aside from commiserating about the state of journalism through the screen with Anne Hathaway, I enjoyed this second go-round.
So what if it was a blatant cash grab? Put Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci in a room, and I’d probably watch whatever they come up. Tucci, in particular, was a standout for me in this sequel.
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Long before he arrived at USC, a couple days shy of his 17th birthday, Ethan “Boobie” Feaster had always been in a hurry to grow up.
He was the baby of the Feaster family, seven years younger than his next youngest sibling. But nothing about his behavior, even as a kid, suggested as much. He was always quiet, calm, determined, seemingly from birth, according to his father, Lee. When Lee Feaster encouraged Boobie at age 8 to write down his goals, and “make ‘em plain,” Boobie took the advice literally. He went straight to his bathroom mirror and copied them down. They’re still written on the bathroom mirror, to this day.
When he was 9, Boobie asked his father to buy him a football poster. Lee came in later to find it attached to the ceiling, above his bed. He asked Boobie why.
“I need it to be the first thing I see when I wake up,” Lee recalled him saying, “and the last thing I see when I go to bed.”
This, needless to say, was not exactly normal behavior for a 9-year-old. But nothing about Boobie Feaster has ever been normal. Least of all the relentless drive that would one day have everyone at USC raving and others around the nation whispering about one of the most anticipated freshman in college football.
Neither is it normal exactly for USC’s offensive-minded coach, Lincoln Riley, to enter into a season so unproven at the receiver position.. With the status of No. 1 receiver Tanook Hines still unclear less than a week out from the season opener, USC will almost certainly have to rely on a group of talented freshman receivers to hit the ground running.
That includes Boobie, who at just 17 years and three months, will be the youngest among them by a wide margin. In fact, he may be the youngest ever to suit up at USC. Feaster is the school’s youngest player dating back to when USC started recording player birth dates.
But talk to those who know Boobie best, and they’ll tell you that age, in his case, is merely a number.
“He’s always been an old soul,” said Kerry Sweeney, the receivers coach at DeSoto High in Texas.
Sweeney met Boobie when he was in the seventh grade. He’d heard about the kid’s stellar football IQ, so he tried to stump him. He asked Feaster, then barely 12, to explain the difference between cover-2 and cover-3 defenses.
Boobie Feaster looks across the field during a youth football game. The USC receiver frequently played against older kids.
(Courtesy of Lee Feaster)
“He knew exactly what it was,” Sweeney said.
What Sweeney didn’t know was that when Lee Feaster, a football coach himself, was studying game film, Boobie was right there with him. He knew a lot more than coverage schemes.
Boobie had also been playing up one — or two even — age levels. In the seventh grade, he started working with a personal receivers coach, David Robinson of D-Rob Sports & Fitness Training. A year later, Robinson had Boobie, as an eighth grader, training with former NFL receivers, such as Dez Bryant, or college receivers on their way to the NFL.
“There was no polish or anything,” Robinson said. “But he was just a natural. Natural speed, natural length, naturally tall.”
But it was his mind that continued to mystify coaches most. Even at a young age, he made sure to concern himself with the minor nuances of the playbook and the receiver position. By the time he debuted as a freshman at DeSoto, coaches already trusted him to run choice routes, which gives the receiver multiple different options based on the defensive alignment.
By the state playoffs that season, Sweeney said that Boobie was already the best receiver on a team that would produce three Division 1 wideouts.
“He was dominating,” Sweeney said, “as a freaking freshman. “
It seemed clear to everyone around him, at that point, that Boobie could handle skipping a season of high school football. So after his sophomore season, Boobie reclassified from the Class of 2027, in which he was recognized as a top-five prospect in the nation, to 2026.
His relationship with USC receivers coach Dennis Simmons was solidified by that point. They’d been introduced when Boobie was in the seventh or eighth grade — and just beginning to blow up on social media. Simmons said he was impressed by Boobie’s maturity.
“He recruited Boobie really hard,” Robinson said. “That relationship is what really kind of jump-started USC as a front-runner.”
USC never relinquished that spot. But Feaster had to wait until he enrolled at USC this summer while the other talented pass-catchers in his class got a head start.
That’s not to say he wasn’t trying to get ahead in other ways.
Boobie Feaster reaches out to catch a pass during his youth training before arriving at USC.
(Courtesy of Lee Feaster)
Lee Feaster said that before his son’s arrival at USC, Boobie was obsessing for months over USC’s playbook. He worked flashcards with Robinson and sometimes made his father line up in the street in front of their house just to commit certain plays and alignments to memory.
“Oh, he knew the playbook,” Lee Feaster said. “He knew it before he got there.”
He’s opening eyes at USC practice. During a preseason scrimmage at the Coliseum last week, Boobie burst through a sliver in USC’s defense and took a tunnel screen to the house, reminding in one play exactly why USC’s coaches thought he was ready to contribute at 17.
“He was game-ready,” wideout Terrell Anderson said, “as soon as he came in.”
How quickly he’ll actually influence a game at USC remains to be seen. The Trojans are expected to play several freshmen against San José State on Saturday, and anyone who knows Boobie will tell you it’s only a matter of time before he contributes. After all, after starting in the slot, Feaster took it upon himself to start learning the outside receiver spot.
When Boobie moved to L.A. in May, his father tagged along, just to make sure he got acclimated. His mother came shortly after that.
And they’re reminded sometimes that Feaster is still just a teenager. That he’s still got a lot of growing to do. His goals are still written on his bathroom mirror, to remind him of that every day.
But if the past is any indication, it shouldn’t be long.
“I believe, like three games in, everyone is going to be saying, ‘Who’s this freshman?” Sweeney said. “Who’s this Boobie Feaster?’”
Eighth in a series of stories profiling top high school football players by position. Today, Wesley Ace, Gardena Serra defensive back.
Wesley Ace has no complaints when people underestimate his football ability.
“A couple coaches just walk by,” he said of recruiters showing up at practices and bypassing him.
At 5 feet 9 and 180 pounds, the Gardena Serra High cornerback is used to the skepticism because of his size.
“It’s all good,” he said. “My film speaks for itself. If you’re a baller, you’re a baller.”
And Ace is a fast baller, having run the 100 meters last spring in 10.51 seconds at the school that produced state 100-meter champion Rodrick Pleasant. Ace also has video of him running down the speedy Deshonne Redeaux last season to prevent a touchdown against Oaks Christian. Redeaux is a freshman at USC this season.
Playing the nickel position in Serra’s 4-2-5 defensive alignment, Ace contributed 52 tackles. He’s an aggressive tackler. He’s far stronger than people think, bench-pressing 275 pounds.
He’s been playing tackle football only since eighth grade.
“My whole life, I’ve been playing baseball,” he said.
Then he got bored and switched to football.
“I had to get stronger, faster and learn the rules of the game,” he said.
His first position was defensive end. The coach must have wanted someone to be a pest going after quarterbacks with his lack of size.
“I was so fast, big guys that age couldn’t keep in front of me,” he said.
Ace learned to play defensive back and was most effective last season covering slot receivers. This season he’ll get a chance to show what he can do against taller players as a cornerback. He’s confident his speed and strength will make it a smooth adjustment.
“As a defensive back, you’re going to mess up eventually,” he said. “Speed allows you to recover and get back.”
His father, Wesley Sr., was a standout defensive back at Westchester and San Diego State who never encouraged his son to play football because of head injury concerns. He’s been training him while serving as an assistant principal in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“My dad always says be everything but big,” Ace said.
Don’t be surprised to see Serra taking advantage of Ace’s speed by letting him return kickoffs and make some plays on offense. Regardless, he finds a way to contribute on defense with his quickness, instincts and fearless attitude. He committed to San José State during the summer.
“For sure, I play with a chip on my shoulder,” he said.
Wednesday: Gabriel Goroyan, Westlake kicker.
Defensive backs to watch
Isala Aisa Wily-Ava, St. John Bosco, 6-2, 195, Sr.: Washington commit has been starting so long he might have grey hair
Wesley Ace, Gardena Serra, 5-9, 180, Sr.: San José State commit ran 10.51 seconds for 100 meters
Myles Baker, Sierra Canyon, 6-2, 205, Sr.: UCLA commit is built like the Rock of Gibraltar
Jordan Hicks, Mission Viejo, 6-1, 180, Jr.: Ambitious, confident and decisive on any field
Jaden Walk-Green, Corona Centennial, 6-0, 195 Sr.: Washington commit had 10 interceptions last season
JuJu Johnson, Long Beach Poly, 5-11, 175, Sr.: UCLA commit is most improved player anywhere
Danny Lang, Mater Dei, 6-1, 165, Sr.: USC commit thrives on hand-to-hand combat with receivers
Jaxson Rex, San Clemente, 6-1, 190, Sr.: Put him anywhere on the field and BYU commit would excel
Gavin Williams, Damien, 6-1, 185, Sr.: USC commit will set highest standard at safety this season
Donte Wright, Long Beach Poly, 6-2, 180, Sr.: Miami commit is physical cornerback with speed
Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where we’re dedicating the next two editions of Times of Troy to determining a range of outcomes for this make-or-break season of USC football. We’ll save the rose-colored takes for next week, when the Trojans will be on the doorstep of their season opener against San José State. But for today, as we did at this time last year, let’s consider the other, darker side of that same coin — and talk about how it could all go wrong.
Because, rest assured, there will be plenty of landmines to navigate through a gauntlet schedule that includes all three of the top three teams in opponent adjusted efficiency (FEI) from last season (Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State), plus the 14th-ranked team in the same category (Washington). Then there’s a trip to one of the hardest places to play in America (Penn State) to boot.
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USC will need to win at least three of those five games to make the Playoff. Which is borderline cruel to ask.
For the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume that USC opens its season 3-0, with wins over San José State, Fresno State and Louisiana. Anything less, it’s fair to say, would be an unmitigated disaster.
How those three weeks go, though, will be important for the progress of USC’s young players, who need to find their bearings fast in order for USC to fulfill its potential.
It would be an especially unfortunate twist of fate for that process to be interrupted or for the team’s depth to take a hit through that easy, early stretch. But barring injury, those first three weeks should give USC time to get some of its young stars — such as receivers Kayden Dixon-Wyatt and Boobie Feaster, tight end Mark Bowman, cornerback Rock Hill and defensive end Luke Wafle, especially — up to speed.
The slate really begins Sept. 19, when USC opens conference play with its furthest possible trip east, at Rutgers. With Oregon awaiting the next week and the added dynamic of cross-country travel, you could certainly convince me the Trojans could be caught flat-footed in this game, leaving things a bit too close for comfort. But if USC somehow loses to Rutgers in its Big Ten opener, coach Lincoln Riley might not make it much past Halloween.
So let’s say the Trojans are 4-0 when Oregon comes to the Coliseum in late September. Really, it’s this game that will tell us where USC is actually headed this season.
Because the stage will have never been bigger for quarterback Jayden Maiava, who had his worst game of 2025 in Eugene last fall. That performance, according to Pro Football Focus, featured double the turnover-worthy throws (six) of any other game Maiava has started at USC. Any worst-case for USC probably includes some form of unraveling from the quarterback.
But even with Maiava at his best, Oregon is still the deeper and more well-rounded team. The front seven should be as formidable as it’s ever been under coach Dan Lanning. The quarterback might be the NFL’s No. 1 overall pick next spring, and his weapons on offense are as good as any in college football. That firepower proves too much for USC, which gets beat at home for the first time since November 2024.
Losing to Oregon would be a bitter pill for a young team to swallow. And it would also be a particularly bad time to start spiraling. Because the next three weeks are all losable games. Washington has a mobile quarterback (Demond Williams) capable of wreaking havoc on USC’s defense if its front seven can’t keep him contained. And while we don’t know what to expect from new coach Matt Campbell and Penn State, the White Out at Beaver Stadium a week later will be no joke. Even Wisconsin shouldn’t be overlooked two weeks after that. Especially at Camp Randall.
There’s a world in which USC has lost three of four, we’ll spot them a win at Wisconsin, after starting the season 3-0. That slump could be an absolute back-breaker. Because guess who looms after that?
Oh, just Ohio State and Indiana.
Pretty bleak, right?
Suddenly, in this most demoralizing scenario, USC is out of the Playoff picture at the halfway point of the season. The positive vibes around Gary Patterson’s hire are gone, and a significant segment of the fanbase will have resigned themselves to never seeing a good USC defense again in their lifetimes.
The conversation around Riley’s future will have reached a fevered pitch. The seat will have gotten scorching hot. The Trojans would now be playing for their coach’s job. The pressure, on a particularly young team, would be immense.
And then, Ohio State comes to town. The Buckeyes have lost three times on the road in the last two seasons, compared to just once at home. But those three road losses were either in the postseason to a top-two team, at Oregon or the inexplicable 2024 loss to a far inferior Michigan team in The Game. Chalk this up to a loss, as Ohio State tramples over both of USC’s fronts.
Indiana, meanwhile, has yet to lose a home game in two years under Curt Cignetti. I don’t expect that to change this year, either.
So with losses to Ohio State and Indiana — and a presumably smooth win at Maryland — USC would be 6-5 heading into the crosstown rivalry. And I think we can all agree that no scenario would be more of a worse case for USC than UCLA emerging from its first season under Bob Chesney as the better-trending program between the two.
I don’t think that’s where this season is headed. This is an absolute worst-case scenario, after all. The schedule does give USC serious spiral potential. And stranger things have happened in the crosstown rivalry.
But if USC were to end this season at 6-6, with a baffling loss to the Bruins, I think I can say pretty confidently that the whole program will be headed in a new direction after that.
Will Ryon Sayeri remain USC’s kicker this season?
(Kenneth Richmond / Getty Images)
—Is USC’s starting offensive line already set? It’s starting to feel that way. The season-ending injury to center Kilian O’Connor limited USC’s options, with Tobias Raymond now almost assuredly set to step in there. But from what we’ve seen in open periods, there hasn’t been much movement elsewhere. Hayden Treter has been the preferred option at left guard, while Alani Noa has primarily been at right guard. Elijah Paige and Justin Tauanuu have once again been the bookends at tackle. Whether that’ll be the case by the midway point of the season, we’ll see, but USC seems confident with Treter and Noa flanking Raymond on the interior.
—Could USC make a change at kicker? Riley would like us to believe that it’s definitely a possibility, despite the fact that last season’s All-Big Ten third-team kicker Ryon Sayeri has returned. Sayeri wasn’t going to get the job last year until former Nevada Las Vegas kicker and freshman All-American Caden Chittenden got injured and relinquished it with Sayeri’s strong play. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a situation as a coach where you have like two guys that you believe in as much as I believe in them,” Riley said. Still, it would be bold to replace a guy who was as consistent as Sayeri was for most of last season.
—USC football got its Class of 2028 quarterback. Trey Wright is currently just the 25th-ranked passer in the class, according to 247 Sports. But Riley, who prefers to offer just one quarterback in each class, clearly sees something in the Frisco, Texas, signal-caller. Wright certainly piled up stats as a sophomore, throwing for over 4,000 yards and 38 touchdowns while rushing for nearly 1,800 yards and 16 touchdowns. The comparisons with Kyler Murray were natural even before the Vikings quarterback, who won a Heisman with Riley, sent Wright a video that he posted on social media. Wright is just 5 feet 10 and 175 pounds. But he looks like a heck of an athlete.
—Most of USC’s starting lineup for next hoops season is injured right now. Which is not exactly … ideal. But only center Eric Reibe is expected to miss real time into the season. Georgetown transfer KJ Lewis’ ankle should be healed by the start of the season in November. He’s expected to start playing live five-on-five in October. Rodney Rice (shoulder) should be good to go before that, while other key contributors have battled through bumps and bruises this summer. Reibe’s situation is especially odd. He sought a second opinion on his foot injury, according to a person familiar with the decision, and was told to sit out the summer to try to avoid surgery. Well, he ended up getting the surgery anyway, losing seven weeks of potential recovery time.
Polling the people
This is obviously a critical season for Riley’s future, and everyone seems to have a number in mind of what it’ll take for Riley to keep his job.
So, what is the fewest number of wins you’d accept from Riley and USC without calling for a change?
You don’t see many female serial killers — estimates historically range around just 8% to 12% — but that premise is a thrilling starting point for Hulu’s new cat-and-mouse crime thriller, “Furious.” Emmy Rossum stars as Alice Black, a female FBI agent who’s tasked with tracking down a sex trafficking survivor who has taken to murdering the men who abused her.
But the show gets much deeper than that, as lines start to blur between what’s right and wrong and who’s the actual villain in the story. Only a few episodes are out so far, but what I’ve seen so far suggests we might be looking back on this show as one of the best of 2026.
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Mater Dei and Sierra Canyon have been the two best high school girls’ volleyball teams in the Southland the last several years and the likelihood is high that they will meet in the Southern Section Division 1 finals for a third consecutive season.
Mater Dei won the state Open Division championship in November, led by four seniors now suiting up for NCAA Division I programs — setter Sam Capinpin at Cal State Bakersfield, libero Lizzy Robinson at Oregon and middle blocker Addison Coady and outside hitter Layli Ostovar (the 2025 Gatorade California player of the year) at USC.
The Monarchs won the Queen’s Court Invitational (the last preseason warmup tournament) in Irvine at the start of the month and boast one of their deepest rosters in coach Dan O’Dell’s 14 seasons thanks to five elite transfers: senior opposite hitter Katherine Nowak from JSerra; junior outside hitter/defensive specialist Sienna Cicero from Orange Lutheran; junior middle blocker Reagan Williams from Sunny Hills; junior outside hitter Janiah Burrage from Rancho Christian and senior middle hitter (and Long Beach State commit) Saaliyah Brown from Etiwanda, all of whom are eager to contribute once the mandatory sit-out period ends Sept. 13.
Sierra Canyon senior Kendall Omoruyi, right, is one of the top middle blockers in the country.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
In a matchup of reigning state champions, Mater Dei prevailed in five sets over Harvard-Westlake in its Aug. 11 season opener, and it was no surprise that UCLA-bound senior hitter Westley Matavao made her presence felt with 16 kills, 19 digs and six aces. California commit Emma Kingston added 13 kills and three blocks as setting duties were shared by senior Kalea Lee (24 assists) and junior Riley Stringer (20 assists).
“It’s great to start out playing a team that’s just as competitive as us — it’s good prep for what we can expect all season,” said Matavao, who recorded 405 kills, 177 digs, 37 aces and 32 blocks a year ago. “This teaches us to not be laid back, to keep our foot on the gas. I think we’re better than last season because we have more versatility.”
Making an immediate influence was freshman Jimin Seung, who ended the first point of the season with a kill and finished with 10. On a team with 11 seniors, Seung is fitting right in with a fearless attitude and competitive drive.
“It was nerve-racking, but knowing our team is one, the nervousness turns to confidence,” Seung said. “I came to Mater Dei because it’s the place that felt most like home and I wanted to grow in my religion. I’ve only known Westley a few weeks and she’s already like a big sister to me. She’s a senior and I’m a freshman, but we have a lot in common because we play the same position.”
Mater Dei coach Dan O’Dell guided the Monarchs to the CIF State Open Division championship in 2025.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Though Mater Dei has superior depth, Sierra Canyon has a more experienced starting lineup — a nucleus of All-Americans consisting of Missouri-bound setter Lucky Fasavalu, Nebraska-bound middle Kendall Omoruyi and a trio of outside hitters in Eva Jeffries (Tennessee), Hanna McGinest (Texas Tech) and McKenna McIntosh (USC).
Filling the last rotation spot will be Isabella Torres-Wallace from ICL Academy; fellow sophomore middle Cassie Smith and junior Raneighla Gonzalez, who transferred from Heritage Christian last year but got hurt and played in only two sets. The top back row options for coach Stefanie Wigfall, who will likely pass the 400-win mark this season, are senior Olive Shum and Mira Costa transfer Blake Gurney.
Sierra Canyon, which beat Mater Dei to win its second section title in four years last fall, finished fifth at Queen’s Court without Fasavalu, Omoruyi and McGinest, who led the team a year ago with a combined 469 kills, 265 digs, 29 blocks and 28 aces. The Trailblazers beat Kahuku (Hawaii), Mira Costa, JSerra, San Juan Hills, Palos Verdes, Harvard-Westlake and Cornerstone Christian (San Antonio) to reach the finals of the Ann Kang Invitational in Honolulu. They then rallied past host Iolani, 18-25, 25-11, 15-9, in Saturday’s championship match to win the prestigious tournament for the first time.
Lucky Fasavalu helped lead Sierra Canyon to the Southern Section Division 1 title in 2025.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Division I state champion Harvard-Westlake got 12 kills each from sophomore Brooke Cotter and Boston College-bound Ruby Sampson and 11 from Princeton commit Sophia Cotter against Mater Dei. Last year the Wolverines finished third in the Mission League behind Sierra Canyon and Marymount, which has lost five Division I players to graduation — Sammy Destler (Washington), Elle Vandeweghe (Southern Methodist), Declan Eastman (Rice), Olivia Penske (Georgetown) and Frankie Jones (Brown) — but brings back Northwestern commit Makenna Barnes, setter/hitter Leighton Devereux and Katelyn Oerlemans, a middle/opposite hitter committed to Stanford for beach volleyball.
Challenging Mater Dei in the Trinity League will be Santa Margarita, which won the Southern Section Division 2 title last year behind player of the year Ireland Real, a Texas commit who pounded more than 400 kills and had 150 digs.
Mira Costa will be led by senior captains Brynn Barry (libero), Lerin Rosenthal (setter, opposite) and Allyn Hilt (outside hitter) but will have to overcome the loss of setter Milly McGee (USC) and hitters Audrey Flanagan (Wisconsin) and Simone Roslon. Bay League rival Redondo Union is in a similar circumstance, having to replace hitter Abby Zimmerman (Cal), twins Avery and Addi Junk (Florida State) and middle blocker Taylor Boice (UC Irvine). Cypress graduated CIF-SS Division 3 player of the year Isabella Faro.
Defending champion Palisades and Taft, which lost to the Dolphins in the Open Division semifinals last fall, are the preseason favorites in the City Section.
Matavao relished a chance to face her cousin Fasavalu (the CIF-SS Division 1 player of the year) in the finals again: “I think there’s a good chance we’ll see them again.”
Teams to watch: Mater Dei, Sierra Canyon, Marymount, Harvard-Westlake, JSerra, Santa Margarita, San Juan Hills, Mira Costa, Redondo Union, Newport Harbor, Los Alamitos, Long Beach Poly, Temecula Valley, Crean Lutheran, West Ranch.
Fourth in a series of stories profiling top high school football players by position. Today, Luke Gazzaniga, Santa Margarita tight end.
You’re unlikely to feel sympathy for 6-foot-4, 235-pound tight end Luke Gazzaniga, a senior at Santa Margarita High who enjoys the idea of running over tacklers after catching a pass or sending an opponent crashing to the ground with a bone-crushing block.
Except understand that he’s the smallest brother in his family. The others are 6-7 and 6-5, so imagine the little brother in the front yard doing the Oklahoma drill, a legendary one-on-one football drill from years ago that tested toughness via collisions.
“We’d literally just run at each other,” he said.
Some brothers play video games or collect baseball cards. The Gazzanigas were into seeing who would be the last one standing.
“It was fun,” Luke said. “I was quick when I was a little kid. I wouldn’t go down. I’ve had to fight for myself. I had to find my way to win.”
Their father, David, who played football at Dartmouth and became an orthopedic surgeon, welcomed the competition. If any of the boys came into the house before a game was over, Dad’s response was, “Suck it up and go back.”
“He taught us how to be tough,” Luke said.
You can sense the enjoyment Luke has on a football field. After he catches a pass, he looks up and gets excited if there’s a defender nearby.
“I love seeing people there,” he said. “I’m letting them know if you’re going to try to tackle me, it’s going to hurt you more than me. I’m glad someone thinks they can tackle me.”
Future Hall of Fame tight end Rob Gronkowski has been the player he’s most admired, and Gazzaniga has been able to see pro players up close because his father worked as a physician with the Chargers. Luke got to hang out in the training room and on the field.
“They’re impressively big and impressively fast,” he said. “People were huge.”
42 seconds left in first quarter. Santa Margarita 19, De La Salle. Luke Gazzaniga TD. About the only thing the Eagles need to work on are PATs. 1 for 3. pic.twitter.com/WA6IY0blgI
During Santa Margarita’s run to the Southern Section Division 1 and Open Division state titles last season, Gazzaniga became an important offensive weapon over the middle, even though he suffered an ankle injury and missed six weeks. He caught 20 passes for 332 yards and four touchdowns.
“God gave me the blessing to catch anything,” he said.
Santa Margarita coach Carson Palmer used to take advantage of throwing to the tight end when playing at USC and in the NFL, and there’s no doubt Gazzaniga feels comfortable in the Eagles’ offensive schemes. Tight ends continue to gain attention at the highest levels.
“It’s a super important position,” Gazzaniga said. “People love looking at receivers and forget the tight end is almost the glue between passing and running. The Rams use three tight ends and there’s a bunch of big personnel types all over the league. I can envision myself being there one day and making an impact.”
Gazzaniga is committed to Kansas. He comes from a family of athletes. Two older sisters played water polo at USC, with Rachel now a candidate to play for the U.S. Olympic team in 2028. Brother John is a quarterback at Alabama. His mother is an avid mountain climber. John used to throw bullet passes to Luke growing up, which helped prepare him for any and all quarterbacks.
Thanksgiving always has produced an interesting dynamic with five tall, energetic kids circling for a turkey leg.
“It’s hard to know how much we eat,” Luke said.
Saturday: Vincent Shields, Murrieta Valley offensive lineman.
Tight ends to watch
Luke Gazzaniga, Santa Margarita, 6-4, 235, Sr.: Kansas commit makes big catches in traffic
JJ Haley, Corona del Mar, 6-3, 200, Jr.: The next top tight end from the tight end school
Max Markofski, Mission Viejo, 6-4, 230, Sr.: Arizona commit is known for his receiving skills
Hudson Ploog, Orange Lutheran, 6-5, 235, Sr. Nevada Las Vegas commit is like a sixth offensive lineman to clear defenders
Jaylin Smalls, Rancho Cucamonga, 6-4, 230, Jr.: This is the season he begins to show his talents
Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where we are just deep enough into USC’s fall football camp to ask the same question we ask every year around this time:
Might this be the year that Lincoln Riley actually fields a good defense at USC?
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Under D’Anton Lynn, the Trojans had unequivocally improved on that side of the ball. Lynn took the disaster that was USC’s defense under Alex Grinch and turned it into a respectable outfit, albeit one with limitations. There was no dominant, or even consistent, pass rusher. The run defense was regularly run over by good teams. And too often, in the biggest moments, there were mental lapses or self-inflicted mistakes on the back end of Lynn’s defense.
At the time, he pointed to the team’s youth as the problem.
“This team is more talented, but they’re just young,” Lynn said last November. “It’s just guys who haven’t played before. There are certain mistakes you have to live through.”
Almost a year later, USC has a new defensive coordinator. And kind of the same problem.
There are two things I think we can safely assume about this defense, compared to its 2025 counterpart: That Gary Patterson, as a newly minted College Football Hall of Famer, should be a significant upgrade from Lynn. And that the influx of five-star talent on USC’s defense should be too.
Because the hard truth, from the past four seasons, is that the Trojans just haven’t had enough talent on defense. Say what you will about the defensive coaching — and it has ranged from above average to horrendous during Riley’s tenure — but outside of Tuli Tuipulotu, who was only with Riley in 2022, USC just hasn’t had any true difference-makers capable of blowing up drives or taking over games on that end.
That’s beginning to change. The 2025 class had one defensive player I believe to be truly special in defensive tackle Jahkeem Stewart, plus a couple others who have flashed some potential, such as defensive back Alex Graham and defensive tackle Floyd Boucard.
The 2026 class could be a different animal, if early reviews are to be believed. Five-star Luke Wafle already looks the part of a dominant defensive end and doesn’t have much standing in his way if he decides to take over this season. Elbert “Rock” Hill should be a starting cornerback in short order, either this season or next, and guys such as linebacker Talanoa Ili and defensive tackles Tomuhini Topui and Jaimeon Winfield look like future starters too.
But are any of those players poised to make a difference this season? They may have to, if USC has any hope of taking a real step forward on that side of the ball.
Otherwise, the Trojans are going to need some other defenders to make the leap in their second or third seasons, guys such as linebacker Desman Stephens or defensive linemen Jide Abasiri and Kameryn Crawford who have the potential but have never delivered on it consistently. They’re also going to need the secondary to stay healthy and top corners Jontez Williams and Chasen Johnson to live up to their billing from the portal.
But while all that might seem like reason to believe USC’s defense won’t be better in 2026, I actually think there are more such reasons than in recent years.
The front is clearly deeper, and if Wafle and Stewart can break through, USC could have two difference-makers along the defensive line for the first time in years. The secondary has two possible shutdown corners for the first time too.
The main cause for concern comes at linebacker, where USC still doesn’t have much in the way of high-level options. But if Stephens and Jadyn Walker can stand up better against the run in their third seasons, which Patterson seems convinced they can do, then those long standing problems could be at least somewhat mitigated this season.
The truth is there’s no real way of knowing how USC’s defense will look when it rolls out later this month. Patterson hasn’t coached since 2021. He has told us on several occasions that his defense will look different, blending concepts from other schools he observed and from USC’s previous defense.
But on paper, at least, the potential is at least there for Patterson to put together the best defense Riley has had as USC’s coach, complete with difference-makers in the defensive front and defensive backfield. Which, when paired with a top-10 offense, could be a pretty powerful thing.
The USC Bloom Football Performance Center.
(Allen Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
It’s extremely … functional. I know that’s not the sexiest answer. But it’s not the sexiest building.
And I mean that as a compliment!
It’s clear how much the design reflects the input of Riley and his staff, as well as others who understand what USC has been dealing with for years at the John McKay Center. Eighty percent of that facility was underground. So it’s notable when you see the natural light pouring in through the atrium from the ground floor or the 30-foot garage doors opening from the weight room to the practice field.
Amenities such as pickleball courts or infrared saunas or sensory deprivation tanks are cool, but I was more impressed by the heavy emphasis put on player recovery. Which was something else that Riley trumpeted in talking with reporters after our tour. The players themselves said that their favorite part so far was the zero-gravity recliners at their lockers.
The most impressive part, to me, is how everything withing Bloom feels so big, even as space had for so long been seen as a major problem on USC’s campus. For years, administrators told me and other reporters that they’d never be able to build a new facility on campus. But Bloom checked in at three floors and 163,000-square feet and at no point does any of it feel cramped.
In fact, there’s extra space in the building. Designed for the program to have room to grow.
“My goal with this building,” Riley said Thursday, “is I hope 50 years from now, when I’m really, really, really old, that whoever is in this thing, it’s still one of the top facilities and still is the home of USC football and still gives this program every possible advantage it could.”
USC’s starting center from 2025 is out for the season. What now?
Fifth-year senior Kilian O’Connor went down with a non-contact injury last Wednesday, ending his season and presumably his tenure with the Trojans. On an emotional level, it’s a tough pill for the team to swallow.
“[He’s] certainly one of the leaders and kind of heartbeats of this program,” Riley said Thursday of the former walk-on.
But from a football standpoint, the offensive line is one of the few places where USC may actually be able to weather a loss such as O’Connor. It’s possible that he might not have started the whole season at center, anyway.
With O’Connor out, Tobias Raymond, who took reps at center in the spring, could shift there full time. That would open up another spot at guard, where the best combination of Alani Noa, Hayden Treter, Breck Kolojay or even Justin Tauanuu could fit in.
There are options. Which is not a luxury USC has at a lot of other positions. It has offensive line coach Zach Hanson to thank for that.
—USC transfer center Eric Reibe is out for the foreseeable future after foot surgery. A Trojan transfer with high expectations got hurt before playing a single game at USC? You don’t say? Once again, USC starts a season stricken with the worst injury luck. It wasn’t clear yet this week how long Reibe will be out, but I expect it’ll be a while. The Trojans have already been in the mix for former Villanova center Duke Brennan, who got an extra, fifth year of eligibility after the NCAA changed its rules, and they could go after others if he goes elsewhere. USC only has one other true center on the roster, freshman Darius Ratliff. And while he — and his brother — are very talented, the ideal trajectory for both would’ve been to bring them along slowly behind more established players.
—Alani Noa was away from the team last bowl season “to deal with some personal stuff” at home. But the Trojans incumbent starting guard said last week that “there was never a question whether I was going to play at USC” and that the staff was totally supportive at the time. Whether Noa is able to return his starting spot at guard may be another story. As noted above, he’ll have a lot of worthy competition.
—Lincoln Riley has offered a quarterback from the 2028 class. Riley doesn’t usually offer more than one, meaning his choice for 2028 is Lone Star (Texas) High dual threat Trey Wright. Wright is 5 foot 11, 180 pounds as a sophomore and already has offers from the likes of Oregon, Oklahoma and Michigan, among several others.
What I’m Watching This Week
Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in a scene from “The Drama.”
(A24)
Robert Pattinson is on a truly epic run this year, and after recommending one of his films last week (“The Odyssey”), I’m bringing us back to the Pattinson well this week with a very, very different movie and very, very different role for the long-ago Twilight vampire.
“The Drama” stars Pattinson and Zendaya as a couple on the verge of getting married, who decide, one night, to confess with their two closest friends the worst thing they’d done in their lives. One of their answers, let’s just say, isn’t received all that well. And what follows is a cringy, funny, tense, propulsive roller coaster that’s definitely worth your time. Especially since it’s now available on HBO Max.
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
As an aspiring young quarterback at Muleshoe High in the early 2000s, Lincoln Riley attended a football camp at Texas Christian University, run by a coach known even then as a mastermind of defense, a man whose ideas and 4-2-5 scheme would one day be disseminated across college football.
Gary Patterson had just been elevated from defensive coordinator to head coach at TCU, a job he would occupy for the next two decades. Around the same time, his staff saw something in Riley. They talked briefly about giving him a shot at safety on Patterson’s vaunted TCU defense.
“Needless to say,” Riley told The Oklahoman in 2018, “it didn’t turn out.”
But a quarter-century after first crossing paths at that camp, it’s now the young quarterback giving the old ball coach a chance to prove himself.
When USC announced it was hiring Patterson as Riley’s defensive coordinator in January, ears perked up across college football. On one hand, Patterson, 66, is a freshly minted College Football Hall of Famer and one of the great defensive minds of the modern era. On the other hand, he hasn’t led a college football team since 2021, when he was forced out at TCU, and a lot has changed in the sport since. Not to mention it’s been more than 25 years since Patterson last served as a coordinator.
Those were fair concerns, considering all that’s riding on Riley getting it right with Patterson, his third defensive coordinator in five seasons. But after seven months with him on the job, you won’t find anyone at USC — players, coaches or administrators alike — with an ounce of distress over Patterson’s stamina.
“I think I would have had more reservations had I not known him,” Riley said. “But that fire still burns very, very hot.”
That much was obvious in the spring when Patterson jumped into the middle of a tackling circuit to teach proper technique, and ended up running through the whole drill. He even delivered a blow at the end.
“He knocked the guy back,” said safeties coach Paul Gonzales, who coached with Patterson for a decade at TCU. “For a 60-year old guy, he still got some pop.”
USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson watches practice in March.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Riley is betting big on that translating to the Trojans’ defense this fall. Over his four seasons as USC’s coach, there’s no mistaking what’s held Riley back from reaching the same heights at USC as he had at Oklahoma. The Trojans finished 124th, 104th, 87th and 65th in yards allowed per play during those years.
At TCU, Patterson’s defenses finished No. 1 in yards allowed five times during a 10-year stretch. Yet in the second half of his tenure at TCU, there was a noticeable decline, as his defenses finished in the top 25 of that same category just twice.
It was during that time that Riley’s offense went toe-to-toe with Patterson’s defense on numerous occasions. Riley, who was in his first head coaching job at Oklahoma, got the better of Patterson in each of their four meetings, piling up at least 498 total yards each time out.
“There was never anyone who was more of a pain to gameplan for or try to move the ball against than this guy,” Riley said.
During his five years away from coaching, Patterson said he actually spent more time studying the game than he had at TCU, where he was often consumed with other responsibilities. After consulting briefly at Texas and Baylor, Patterson took a job with an Amazon college football show, he says, primarily for the subscription service that came with it. Every Sunday morning, he’d watch whatever college game he wanted, just to stay fresh.
When he did return to coaching, Patterson didn’t just want to install the same scheme he used at TCU. So he closely studied Ohio State and Indiana’s defenses, which gave up a combined 32 touchdowns last season — seven fewer than USC’s defense (39). He took cues on how both clamped down better than anyone else in the red zone, where they each allowed opponents to convert touchdowns just 37% of the time.
“All I did was do football,” Patterson said. “I mean, it’s like getting married. I mean, it’s like I got nothing else. I wasn’t doing anything else.”
Those habits haven’t changed at USC. When other assistants took time for vacation this summer, Patterson stayed in the facility. He wanted to hone in on how to install his defense for a second time this fall. So he came in every day before 7 a.m., in a mostly empty office — just to beat the traffic.
“You want to change things, it’s a full-time job,” Patterson said. “It’s not one of those things that you do 70 or 80% of your time.”
It also gave him time to get to know his new players, each of whom have been summarily stunned by their veteran coach’s vitality.
“I don’t know how old he is, but he‘s out there like he’s 30,” linebacker Desman Stephens said. “He‘s still being active with us. He’s showing us drills. Like, if he want it done right, he gonna show you the exact way how to do it.”
So far, at USC, Patterson has had his hands on just about every detail of the defense. Which is precisely what Riley envisioned after watching him coach at TCU — and why he wasn’t worried about the game passing Patterson by.
“He was such a hands-on head coach,” Riley said. “He wasn’t a head coach just kind of doing a practice schedule, doing the speech, getting out early. He didn’t just straight CEO this thing, right? He was still calling defense, still game planning. He was very involved in every aspect of that program through all those years.”
USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson fist bumps linebacker Desman Stephens during practice on Aug. 5.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
He won’t have to do that at USC. And Patterson seems perfectly fine with that.
But while others still wonder if he can make a successful return to college football, with a scheme that hasn’t been tested since 2021, Patterson is pretty confident his decades of experience count for something, too.
“It’s an advantage for me compared to somebody that’s 30 years old and doesn’t have kids, never been married, doesn’t know what it’s like to grow somebody up and raise a family and do things,” Patterson said.
“This is, I think, my 45th season. … “There’s not a lot of guys in this profession of the age where you can go back to all the things that I’ve learned through all the years.”
The initial concept for USC’s Bloom Football Performance Center was first born on the back of a napkin. It was late November 2021, and Lincoln Riley was on a plane to Los Angeles, where he was slated to be introduced as USC’s coach.
The then-hypothetical facility had been a critical contingency for Riley, who never toured USC’s facilities, but knew — like most people around college football — that the Trojans were seriously lacking in that department. For years, USC officials had resisted doing anything about it. The John McKay Center hadn’t even been around a decade, they’d inevitably say. Plus, there was the not-so-insignificant problem of where to build a new facility on campus.
“That was a little bit, in that moment, my way to test how committed SC was,” Riley said Thursday. “This honestly was probably the biggest test of commitment for, ‘How invested are we to get this program back?’ When that was met with no hesitations, that was a pivotal part of me taking this job. I think it’s fair to say, if that commitment hadn’t been made, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
The Bloom Football Performance Center on the campus of USC.
Almost five years later, the plans Riley sketched out that morning have been brought to life in one of college football’s finest facilities, the towering jewel of a $225-million capital project at USC that also includes a new baseball stadium (Dedeaux Field) and a women’s soccer and lacrosse field (Rawlinson Stadium).
The three-story, 163,000-square-foot football-only facility opened Wednesday night, with Riley reflecting back on that napkin and marveling at how far the program had come since. But this gleaming building and its array of amenities had far exceeded his initial expectations, he said.
He called it “magical.”
“You can say or promise that you’re gonna build a facility, and then you can halfway do it or you can do it right and just go over the top and just really not hold back in any way, and that’s what our university has done,” Riley said. “I’m proud and thankful for the university for making this happen.”
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1.Bronze plaques of previous USC players adorn the wall of the Mark and Mary Stevens Trojan Legacy Wall at the USC Bloom Football Performance Center.2.The weight room of the USC Bloom Football Performance Center.3.A wall of USC players drafted by NFL teams at the Bloom Football Performance Center.4.Trophies won by the USC football program on display at the Bloom Football Performance Center.
The real magic was that it happened at all, considering all that changed or had gone awry. The athletic director who first agreed to Riley’s facility request, Mike Bohn, resigned. The university president who signed off on it, Carol Folt, retired.
The cost of doing business in college football also went up exponentially with the advent of revenue sharing, all while the university was going through a financial crisis. None of which helped when it came to asking for $200 million in private donations.
Then there was the matter of physical space. The only option to build the facility was to demolish the Trojans’ longtime baseball field and displace the program for multiple seasons.
Hot tubs at the USC Bloom Football Performance Center.
“Think of what Coach Stank and the baseball team, what they had to give up to make this work,” Riley said. “The importance of just getting everybody together and on the same page and pushing in the same direction, this building is one of the first real signs of that. Because this took everybody.”
Riley, in particular, proved to be “very influential” in the process, according to Jeff Fucci, USC’s senior associate athletic director for capital projects.
“Coach was tireless in making sure that this was something that was not going to just be a vision and something that was talked about and not followed through on,” Fucci said.
It also took endowing just about every physical space in the facility to raise the necessary $200 million to build it, from the “Peets Family Atrium” to the “Al Cowlings Defensive Tackles Room” to a hallway labeled as the “Mark and Mary Stevens Legacy Walk.” Even some of the bathrooms bear plaques from donors eager to get their name somewhere in the building.
The locker room at the USC Bloom Football Performance Center,.
“This has been a huge, huge investment from the university,” Fucci said.
The result is a facility that stands in stark difference from the John McKay Center, which cost $70 million when it opened in 2012. That building was “80% subterranean”, according to Fucci — with not nearly enough space to contain the football program, let alone the other sports programs that used it.
Natural light pours into Bloom Center, by contrast. Thirty-foot glass doors open up onto the Trojans’ practice field from a 12,000-square-foot weight room with towering vaulted ceilings. From above, an outdoor terrace is outfitted especially for hosting recruits or other luminaries, complete, for the time being, with basketball courts and pickleball.
“I love coming to the weight room in the morning,” said offensive lineman Tobias Raymond. “The sun is coming up, and you can see it, and you open the doors and you get the fresh air blowing in.”
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1.Jeff Fucci, USC senior associate athletic director, leads the media on a tour of the Bloom Football Performance Center on Thursday.2.USC players make their way to the locker room.3.Mannequins on display with USC football uniforms outside of the on-site cafeteria at the Bloom Football Performance Center.4.The cafeteria at the Bloom Football Performance Center.5.The weight room opens near the practice field.
Riley wanted the facility to put a special emphasis on recovery. So now, players have access to infrared beds, sensory deprivation tanks and AI-led massage chairs. There are hot tubs and cold tubs and a players-only sauna, while every locker is outfitted with a leather zero gravity chair. There’s even a barbershop.
“It’s hard to get our players out of here,” Fucci said.
Riley has been no different. Shortly after moving in, with his family out of town, the coach said he hunkered down for five straight days in the facility.
Before, that would’ve meant barely seeing the sun. But now, as the sun poured through the third-floor atrium of the Bloom Center, Riley couldn’t help but point out the symbolism of such an ambitious undertaking actually coming to life.
“They said it couldn’t be done,” Riley said. “But here we are.”
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1.The football practice fields next to the Bloom Football Performance Center.2.The rooftop deck, an event-ready space at Bloom Football Performance Center.3.USC football coach Lincoln Riley, left, speaks to the media in the team room at the Bloom Football Performance Center on Thursday.4.The lobby of the Bloom Football Performance Center.
Injury update
Projected starting center Kilian O’Connor suffered a non-contact injury during USC’s camp practice Wednesday and will be out for the rest of the season, Riley announced.
“Tough one for the guys to see,” Riley said. “A great reminder for all of our guys just how nothing in this game is ever guaranteed. We’re fortunate to have enough depth on the O-line that we’ve been working on to continue to push forward.”
During his eight seasons as a head college football coach, Lincoln Riley often faced a frustrating conundrum when it came to playing freshmen: Were a handful of plays at the end of a blowout really worth burning a whole year of eligibility?
“I can remember at times going to a player in the game,” Riley said Tuesday. “‘We can probably play you like five to 10 plays at the end of the game. But if you do that, we can’t play you anymore, or we’re going to have to take your redshirt.’ We’re having to talk about that in-game. … You had to be ready to adjust on the fly.”
But after years of meticulously monitoring that playing time, those adjustments will no longer be necessary, after the NCAA adopted new eligibility rules in June. The new model gives athletes a blanket five years to compete, effectively eliminating the need for redshirts or special waivers. It also could alter how rosters are constructed.
Riley has been calling for the rule change since shortly after he became USC’s head coach. And it is now being implemented at the best possible time for his Trojans.
With so many highly touted freshmen from USC’s No. 1 recruiting class sure to see the field this season, there’s no need now for Riley or his staff to look four years into their future while deciding when and how to give them game-day snaps.
“Now you can just make the best decision in the moment,” Riley said. “I think that’s great for the player. … Just play the guys who deserve to play.”
For USC, it means that a fleet of first-year players are sure to see the field, not just during the nonconference slate but beyond, as Riley and his staff feel out which members of the Trojans’ 2026 class could contribute when the schedule suddenly stiffens in late September.
“Any opportunity that we get a chance to play these guys, however it comes out,” Riley said, “you love the fact to be able to do it.”
Some schools could land veteran roster reinforcements as a result of the rule change after a judge granted an injunction allowing anyone in the class of 2022 who would’ve used the fifth year of eligibility to return to claim it. The decision is being appealed by the NCAA. Former USC wideout Jay Fair has indicated on social media that he intends to pursue that route, but as of Tuesday, Fair hadn’t rejoined the program.
The Trojans stand to benefit more than most from the new eligibility rules this season. But Riley does have one issue with the new rule. It currently stipulates that a player’s eligibility clock begins with either their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.
Trent Mosley smiles while leading Santa Margarita to a Division 1 title. Mosley is among the freshmen at USC who will benefit from new eligibility rules.
(Craig Weston)
So as it stands, any freshman with a birthday prior to Sept. 1, 2006, is left with one fewer year to play than their freshmen counterparts.
At USC, that affects two members of the 2026 recruiting class — wide receiver Trent Mosley and safety Madden Riordan.
For Mosley, a former Rancho Santa Margarita star, a fifth year may not ultimately matter. He’s already 20 years old and on track to potentially start in the slot as a freshman.
But USC’s coaches were quick this week to note that the Trojans’ freshmen, no matter how talented, still had some acclimating to do.
“Age is really just a number,” inside receivers coach Chad Savage said of Mosley. “When you’re a freshman and you come into college, there’s a big learning curve, right? Whether it’s playbook, whether it’s everyday life, whether it’s the weight room, whatever it may be, um, I think from a maturity standpoint, he is very mature, but it’s just one step in front of the other, every single day with Trent.”
Tanook Hines, USC’s top returning receiver, was a bit less restrained in his evaluation.
“Trent Mosley definitely stands out,” Hines said. “He seem like a vet, like he’s already been here.”
Riordan, meanwhile, is older than some of the vets on USC’s defense, including junior starting linebacker Desman Stephens, who already has 26 games under his belt at USC. It follows then that Riordan’s football IQ has made an impression with coaches early on.
He’s one of the several freshmen who might have been on the brink of a redshirt, given his weight. But Riordan added almost 15 pounds during the summer to hit 180 and could push for a place in USC’s defensive back rotation.
Riley said he believes Mosley and Riordan — and any other freshmen, for that matter — should get the chance to play all five seasons. No matter how old they are when their college careers start.
“We have a few guys that we are in the process of seeking some clarification and potentially getting some relief on that,” Riley said of the age restrictions. “Our belief is if they’re five for five coming out of high school, they should be five for five. We should keep it simple.
The schools announced they agreed to a four-year series starting in 2030 during Week 1 of the season at the Coliseum. The following year the teams will play in Week 1 at Notre Dame Stadium. The 2032 and 2033 games will be played during Week 1-3 of the season.
“We felt like the best thing for our program was to play this game early in the season,” Riley said. “As I’ve said publicly, we’re a part of a conference. We have a conference schedule to answer to. We don’t make our own schedule, we don’t choose our own kickoff times. And so with that, we have much less flexibility and so it made more sense for us to play this game in a traditional nonconference window.”
Riley, who took many jabs locally and nationally for letting one of college football’s most prestigious rivalry series expire, has been steadfast in noting the inequity between USC playing Notre Dame amid a grueling Big Ten schedule and independent Notre Dame’s ability to surround the contest with less taxing matchups to aid its College Football Playoff push.
USC owns a 37-53-5 all-time record against Notre Dame, excluding the Trojans’ 2005 victory, which was later vacated due to NCAA sanctions (original record: 38-53-5). Riley is 1-3 during his Trojans tenure against the Irish. The teams battle for the Jeweled Shillelagh.
“I think this benefits everyone,” Riley said. “I think this benefits USC. I think this benefits Notre Dame. I think this benefits college football. This is important. We know its important to our fan base, we know it’s important to alumni, we know it’s important to former players and coaches.”
At the start of his fifth fall camp at USC, Lincoln Riley found himself enamored with all that felt new around him. Namely the state-of-the-art, $200-million facility towering over one end of the Trojans’ practice field, with all the luxuries any football coach could ask for.
“This building is magical,” Riley said. “It’s hard to explain how different, how fantastic it is.”
On the field, in front of that gleaming facility, the Trojans also were breaking in something entirely new on Saturday: their receiving corps.
USC opened training camp this week without the services of its top returning wideout, Tanook Hines, after the sophomore underwent an offseason surgical procedure that has yet to revealed. Riley said the injury affecting Hines, who missed the spring, isn’t “overly serious” and that he’s expected back for the start of the season. But his absence leaves the Trojans with a totally new and unproven group to catch passes; many of them are getting their first experience of college football, and of quarterback Jayden Maiava.
“A lot of new bodies. Fortunately he had spring and all summer with all these guys to start developing that chemistry and that confidence,” Riley said of Maiava. “But that’s going to be something we have to work at every single day.”
Among those new players is a host of top receiver recruits expected to contribute right away. Partly, out of necessity.
Freshmen wideouts Trent Mosley and Kayden Dixon-Wyatt already made a strong impression and should immediately step into roles on offense. Tron Baker is another who presumably could carve out a place. And joining them this week at practice, after just enrolling this summer, is a freshman wideout who some believe will be the best of the bunch, top-60 recruit Boobie Feaster.
It may take Feaster time to get up to speed. Hines stepped into a similar position last season, having just arrived on campus for the summer. He proceeded to start eight games anyway.
But Hines was 19 years old by the start of his freshman season. Feaster just turned 17 in late May — and presumably would be one of the youngest players ever to suit up for USC.
Receiver isn’t the only position at which the Trojans are trending young. USC should get key contributions out of freshmen at tight end (five-star Mark Bowman), on the defensive line (five-star Luke Wafle), in the secondary and, at some point, on the offensive line.
That sort of impact should be expected after bringing in a 35-player class that ranked No. 1 in the nation. It also helps, Riley said, that so much of that class has been enrolled for seven months.
“Having as many midyears made a massive difference; I mean, there’s no question about it,” Riley said. “You can feel some of the confidence level.
“And so the less that we can have new as we go on, the more these guys settle in off the field, the better they play.”
That’s the primary goal over the next four weeks of fall camp. One that Riley already has spent plenty of time focused on, while breaking in the Bloom Football Performance Center
“These first few days in here have honestly been a little bit of a dream,” Riley said. “It’s honestly been hard to get players to go home. I haven’t left this place in five days. I haven’t left the compound.”
The L.A. billboard magnate whose name hung over the entrance to USC’s practice football field for a quarter century is suing the school for building a new, $200 million facility over top of it.
Brian Kennedy, a former whose company Regency Outdoor Advertising owns billboards all over Los Angeles, claims in the lawsuit that USC breached its contract by demolishing the practice field to build the Bloom Football Performance Center, which is set to open early next month. The arrival of the state-of-the-art facility and erasure of a field that featured the name of Kennedy and one other donor, according to a complaint obtained by The Times, has caused him “reputational harm,” “embarrassment” and “humiliation.”
“For more than two decades,” the complaint states, “the Field stood as a visible acknowledgment of [Kennedy’s] extraordinary contributions to [USC] and the lasting relationship between [Kennedy] and the University.”
But his relationship as a big-time donor to Trojan athletics really began in 1998, when USC was desperate to build a new practice field for new football coach Paul Hackett.
Kennedy told The Times in 2023 that the school came to him after it had trouble finding another wealthy booster to foot the bill. To that point, he’d only made smaller contributions, primarily to the club hockey and golf teams. But eventually, the school convinced Kennedy to fork over $400,000 for the field, under the condition, he said, that he control all aspects of the construction. He also later paid to add turf and an electronic scoreboard to the field.
He also later paid to add turf and an electronic scoreboard to the field.
Kennedy and USC officially entered into an agreement to construct the field in April 1998. According to the complaint, the original agreement to name the field “and any expansion of it” after Kennedy was intended to remain in effect “for the life of the field.”
The original agreement, according to Kennedy, was for the terms of the agreement to remain “for a period of 50 years.” But that language, the complaint notes, was struck from the agreement before the final agreement was drafted a week later.
How the “life” of Howard Jones and Brian Kennedy Field is defined will be especially important to the case. USC has made changes to the practice field and reconfigured it since its original construction. A person familiar with the school’s thinking but not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that the school plans to argue the field had outlived its usefulness.
USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson directs players during a practice at Howard Jones and Brian Kennedy Field on March 10.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Kennedy did meet with USC officials at one point to try to find a “a mutually acceptable means of preserving and honoring the recognition previously afforded and promised to [him].” But he ultimately felt that USC wasn’t offering “comparable recognition” to his original investment in building a field he saw as part of his legacy.
Now, he’s suing USC for promissory estoppel, fraud, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing and negligent misrepresentation. Kennedy says in the filing that righting the wrong would mean “enforcement of USC’s promises” as well as “appropriate relief for the plaintiff.”
Even with the new facility opening, the plan at USC, according to a person familiar with the situation, had been to keep the west entrance to the practice field which bears Kennedy’s name, known as Goux’s Gate, untouched. The school also plans to add a plaque to the facility that denotes that it stands on the ground where Brian Kennedy Field once stood.
That wasn’t enough for Kennedy, who says the school has acted “willful, malicious, oppressive, fraudulent” and “despicable” as it planned its facility improvements.
During interviews with The Times in 2023 and 2024, Kennedy expressed a deep love and affection for his alma mater. But for more than a decade, his relationship with USC has been complicated, to say the least.
It first soured over a decade ago, during the tenure of athletic director Pat Haden. Where Kennedy was close to his predecessor, Mike Garrett, he did not get along with Haden. Kennedy was a major proponent of former Trojan assistant Ed Orgeron, who led USC on a magical, late-season run as interim coach in 2013 — and who was infamously passed over for the job in favor of Steve Sarkisian.
Kennedy told The Times he also clashed with Haden’s successor, Lynn Swann, over pledged funding for the Galen Center.
His complaint states that Kennedy, in total, has contributed over $4 million to USC.
Former USC athletic director Mike Bohn made inroads with Kennedy, meeting with him for lunch multiple times. But Kennedy told The Times he felt the same effort hadn’t been made by Bohn’s successor, Jennifer Cohen.
The practice field naming rights proved to be the last straw in what was already a fraught relationship with USC.
“I’m just speaking to y’all from the heart,” the NBA’s all-time leading scorer told the audience Thursday night at the Time 100 Sports gala in New York.
In James’ heart and on his mind at that moment was his oldest son Bronny James, who nearly three years ago suffered sudden cardiac arrest as an 18-year-old rising freshman while practicing with the USC basketball team. He later was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect but eventually was able to resume his basketball career.
James and his son ended up becoming Lakers teammates for two seasons before the 23-year veteran became a free agent this summer. Bronny James is entering his third season with the Lakers after contract became fully guaranteed earlier this month.
“Obviously, if it wasn’t for the coaching staff and the medical team and everybody at USC being there in a timely fashion, we’d possibly be sitting here without our oldest son,” said James “So thank you to everybody and all the efforts when it comes to cardiac arrest.”
In June, Time magazine released its inaugural issue highlighting the 100 most influential people in sports, with James on the cover as “athlete of the century.”
James was one of the featured speakers at the gala honoring those individuals, as were fellow Time 100 Sports list members New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson, Olympic gold medalist skater Alysa Liu, Invictus Games founder Prince Harry and women’s soccer legend Alex Morgan.
Savy King and Damar Hamlin speak onstage during the Time 100 Sports gala July 16 in New York.
(Jemal Countess / Getty Images for TIME)
Earlier in the evening, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin and Angel City FC defender Savy King gave a presentation on their experiences as athletes who suffered cardiac arrest while playing in games for their respective teams.
Like Bronny James, they were both young athletes at the time of their incidents — Hamlin was 24; King was 20 — and both were fortunate to have trained medical staff members on hand to perform CPR and use defribulators to save their lives.
Their message hit home for James.
“Guys, take that serious,” he said. “If you got kids in elementary, you got kids in middle school, kids in high school, colleges. Make sure they have these devices available where you can get them, practice them. It’s very important, super, super important. Obviously, we know how important it is to our family, so we’re a big advocate of that.”
The Swoosh is staying at USC for the foreseeable future.
USC and Nike agreed this week to a 10-year extension of their all-sports apparel deal through 2036, the school announced on Tuesday.
Their partnership was already among the longest-running apparel deals in college athletics. Now it’s ensured to carry into its fifth decade.
“USC and Nike have grown together for more than 30 years,” athletic director Jennifer Cohen said in a statement, “and we are thrilled to continue one of the great partnerships in college athletics.”
At the time that USC first signed exclusively with Nike, such corporate sponsorships were a relatively new revenue stream for the school. Now, in the revenue-sharing era, they’ve become a ubiquitous — and essential — part of operating an athletic department.
This new deal should look a bit different than the last few times that USC extended their apparel deal with Nike. For one, it includes an NIL component, with select top-tier Trojan athletes slated to score their own NIL deals with Nike.
As part of the extension, USC’s new Bloom Football Performance Center will become the first facility in the nation fully outfitted with Nike strength equipment. Nike also agreed to design “custom uniform collections” for the USC men’s and women’s basketball programs and to renovate the USC Bookstore.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Other Big Ten schools signed with Nike signed during a stretch between 2015 and 2016 that became an apparel arms race around college football. Ohio State signed a 15-year, $252-million deal with Nike in 2016, while Michigan inked an 11-year, $174-million deal with Nike and Jordan Brand.
Continuing my summer observations looking back at memorable moments in covering high school sports since 1976, you can’t find a better, more beloved action-packed night than Feb. 24, 2017, at USC’s Galen Center when you got to see two great high school basketball games for the price of one in the Southern Section Open Division semifinals.
Anyone who was there remembers the long lines to get in, the sold-out crowd and drama involving Sierra Canyon against Bishop Montgomery and Mater Dei against Chino Hills.
Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where we’re just one month out from fall camp and the start of Lincoln Riley’s fifth season at USC. Soon enough, we’ll have actual football to discuss and not just the existential crises surrounding it.
But while the college sports calendar remains dormant for the moment, summer basketball practice is in full swing at USC. The Times was there at Galen Center last week to get an idea of where the Trojans stand heading into a critical third season for Eric Musselman as coach. And I came away feeling like this is the most talented team the Trojans have had in quite some time.
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What that will mean come March, I wouldn’t even attempt to speculate at this point. It’s June. This team has been together only a couple of weeks. Plans are bound to change. And injuries are bound to happen.*
*I do feel safe in assuming whatever ancient curse or voodoo hex was cast long ago on USC basketball can’t possibly derail another season like it did the last one.**
**OK, so transfer center Eric Reibe aggravating an injury in June and sitting out the summer isn’t … ideal. And sure, neither is the fact that transfer guard KJ Lewis won’t be cleared from the ankle injury he suffered in February until “hopefully mid-to-late September,” per Musselman. But still no freak car accidents, sudden cardiac incidents or bizarre player dismissals to date …
But Musselman has all the makings of a roster that should — read: must — make it to March.
The difference isn’t so much in what USC added to its roster, but rather in who Musselman and his staff managed to retain from the previous one. That was USC’s primary focus coming into the offseason.
Instead of having to rebuild an entire team from scratch like in Musselman’s first two seasons, which proved much more difficult than expected, the Trojans brought back their three top returning players: Rodney Rice, Alijah Arenas and Jacob Cofie.
“Those three are a great start for us,” Musselman said last week, and alluded to losing two transfers last year. “We learned with Wes [Yates] and [Desmond Claude], that hurt us.”
The continuity is significant. At least two of those returners will be starters, with a full year in Musselman’s system, and all three could be drafted next spring if they have strong seasons.
It starts with Rice, the guard who through six games last season looked like a bona fide rising star. His shoulder injury ended up totally changing the Trojans’ trajectory. His return should be equally impactful.
“I can play at a high level, an All-American level,” Rice said. “I have all the confidence in the world still.”
Musselman and his staff feel the same way. And all parties involved concur that the makeup of this roster will better maximize Rice’s skills. He’ll be able to play more off the ball, with other options like lightning-quick Colgate transfer Jalen Cox able to handle more of the load as a floor general.
Rice won’t return to full go until after summer practice, but that’s more of a precaution than anything. He could be on the brink of a big season, if all things break right.
I’m less confident in the spring emergence of Cofie, the forward who played his way into an NBA scouting combine invite in May. When he first signed with USC, Musselman told me he thought Cofie was a future first-round pick. But considering the expectations, I thought his first season as a Trojan was mostly underwhelming.
Musselman thought Cofie “didn’t really have a stamp on the roster” last season. But so far this year, “He’s kind of a different guy.”
Cofie has made a point to expand his game to the perimeter. Just 27% of Cofie’s shots last season came from behind the arc, and he made just 31% of them. But any added spacing would be welcomed on a roster with potential to get bogged down inside the arc.
“You’ll see me shoot a lot more threes,” Cofie said last week. We’ll see how that factors into the lineups that USC is able to deploy this fall.
The most intriguing of the Trojans’ trio of returners is Arenas, given the wide range of possible outcomes in front of the guard this season. After arriving last year as one of the most-hyped hoops prospects in school history, he returns with a chance to basically redo his ill-fated freshman year.
The challenge for him as a sophomore is to be a more efficient player, after shooting just 34% from the field and 21% from three-point range. Arenas also uncharacteristically struggled finishing at the rim and with his shot selection, two skills that previously were seen as strengths.
He has all the tools to bounce back. Arenas’ ability to create space and find his own shot, in particular, is special. The question is how those tools best fit USC with so many more options around him.
When he debuted in January last season after missing the start because of knee surgery, Arenas immediately shouldered the load and dominated the ball. It was too much to ask of a freshman in that situation. But that’s no longer necessary with Rice healthy and Cox able to handle the point. Arenas will benefit from being off the ball more often.
Adding three McDonald’s All-Americans should go a long way with this team as well, if only because there will be real talent at the back end of the rotation. And unlike last season, USC should be able to bring its freshmen along at their own pace.
The potential is obvious with Darius and Adonis Ratliff, but both presumably would benefit from that time. Christian Collins, on the other hand, looks primed to make an impact right away, if needed. Watching him knife through the lane on his way to the hoop last week, I found myself wondering if he might be a lottery pick by next spring.
“Christian has been very impressive,” Musselman said. “We knew the intangibles and the length and the reaction to loose balls, but he has scored the ball, you know, [really well] for a freshman at this early stage.”
It’s far too early to draw any conclusions about the upcoming season. But after watching just one practice, it’s not hard to see why Musselman and his staff are feeling especially sunny this summer.
New eligibility rules
Back in October 2024, days after two USC defenders announced they were sitting out the football season to preserve their eligibility, a frustrated Riley offered what he felt was a reasonable solution to a growing problem.
“Guys should have five years to do whatever you want,” Riley said. “I think it should be that plain and simple. Then nobody has to worry about any of this other crap like how many games you’ve played.”
Almost two years later, the NCAA is finally on board with the coach.
The Division 1 Cabinet voted last week to implement major changes to the NCAA’s eligibility rules, giving athletes five years of eligibility to play five seasons. That means no more redshirts, no more medical waivers, no more eligibility questions. All eligibility clocks start the academic year after an athlete’s 19th birthday, and the only exceptions, per the NCAA, are for pregnancy, active-duty military service and religious missions.
Any athlete who wants to state their case for an extra year of eligibility has until the end of next month. But after that, the word “redshirt” officially can be retired from the college football vocabulary.
USC pitching coach Sean Allen talks to Gavin Lauridsen during a Super Regional game last season.
(Kara Durrette / For The Times)
—Musselman has yet to have one of his USC players selected in the NBA draft. But that will change next season. I’d expect, by next spring, we will be talking about as many as three Trojans who could be selected in 2027. Collins and Arenas are five-star talents, and while Collins’ stock is higher at the moment, Arenas easily could return to draft darling status with a strong start to the season. Then there’s Cofie, who balled his way into a draft combine invite this spring, and Rice, whose name will be known in draft circles soon enough.
—Fourteen USC baseball players entered the transfer portal. That group includes two promising young pitchers in Diego Velazquez (who also plays infield) and Gavin Lauridsen. Both were highly touted prospects and looked slated for bigger roles next season. USC also lost its starting catcher to the portal again, with Isaac Cadena committing to Clemson. Losing the young pitchers is a blow, but without the backing to match the name, image and licensing offers of some ACC and SEC teams, this sort of exodus is just inevitable.
What I’m Watching This Week
Tatiana Maslany in “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.”
(Apple TV)
Apple has been on an absolute heater, and “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” is yet another unique and worthy entrant into its growing library of prestige TV. It stars Tatiana Maslany as Paula, a divorced mom and magazine fact-checker whose only solace is returning to a webcam boy who turns out to be scamming her. Her life is unraveling, but when she takes matters into her own hands, it only descends further into chaos.
“Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” is an absolute thrill ride and one of the more surprising shows I’ve seen this year.
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
