It’s no secret that the 2026 College Football Season is a make-or-break year for Lincoln Riley and the USC Trojans.
With so much pressure facing the Trojans, college football analyst RJ Young said he believes this year’s USC team is a “sleeper” to win the National Championship.
“I think we should be paying attention to USC,” Young said on FS1’s “First Things First.”
“You’re returning Jayden Maiava at quarterback, you’ve got Lincoln Riley calling the plays, and quiet as it is kept, USC was the No. 1 offense in the Big Ten last year.”
As Ford said, the Trojans were one of the most explosive offenses in college football, finishing second in the Big Ten for total offense behind the National Champion Indiana Hoosiers.
USC averaged 471.6 yards and 36.5 points per game last season, while Maiava led the Big Ten with 3,431 passing yards, throwing for 23 touchdowns against eight interceptions.
Maiava is considered one of the top quarterbacks in college football this season but will be playing without wide receivers Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane, who entered the NFL Draft this past April.
But Young added that the running back duo of Waymond Jordan and King Miller is the best Riley has had since he coached Samaje Perine and Joe Mixon at Oklahoma.
Last season, the Trojans’ defense crippled their team, ranked outside of the top ten in the Big Ten conference, giving up an average of 143.2 rushing yards and 207.5 in the air.
On top of struggling to find ways to stop opponents, the Trojans’ defense was among the most penalized teams in the conference, averaging 5.7 per game.
Over the offseason, the team would part ways with former defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn and would hire former longtime TCU head coach Gary Patterson, to what Young calls one of the best coordinator tandems in him and Riley.
“The marriage of those two coordinators, I am fascinated by,” Young Said. “I think that is the best coordinator combo in the sport.”
