USC Trojans Football

Founded in 1888, and the ledger since

USC has fielded a football team since 1888, and the cumulative record — 888 wins, 375 defeats and 54 draws, a winning percentage of.695 — is the flattest way of stating what the programme is. The university claims eleven national championships, seven of them awarded by the AP or coaches' polls. Howard Jones, head coach from 1925 to 1940, took the first four, in 1928, 1931, 1932 and 1939. John McKay, in charge from 1960 to 1975, added 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1974. John Robinson won in 1978. Pete Carroll, who coached from 2001 to 2009, took 2003 and 2004. Thirty-seven conference titles sit alongside them.

The individual honours are stacked in the same way. Eight Trojans have won the Heisman Trophy: Mike Garrett in 1965, O. J. Simpson in 1968, Charles White in 1979, Marcus Allen in 1981, Carson Palmer in 2002, Matt Leinart in 2004, Reggie Bush in 2005 and Caleb Williams in 2022, the last of those in Riley's first season on the job. The Notre Dame fixture, first played in 1926 and contested for the Jeweled Shillelagh since 1952, is the one the programme has always been measured against; Notre Dame leads it 51–37–5.

Into the Big Ten, and four years of nearly

The Trojans left the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024, trading short West Coast trips for flights to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Riley, hired ahead of the 2022 season, is now in his fifth year. His first four produced a 35–18 record and a bowl game every season, but no playoff appearance — the single line that has defined the conversation around him.

The 2025 season came closest. USC finished 9–4 and 7–2 in the Big Ten, beating No. 15 Michigan 31–13, No. 25 Michigan State 45–31 and No. 21 Iowa 26–21 at home, and taking the Victory Bell off UCLA 29–10. The defeats were away: 34–32 at Illinois, 34–24 at Notre Dame on 18 October and 42–27 at Oregon. The year ended on 30 December with a 30–27 overtime loss to TCU in the Alamo Bowl, watched by 54,571 at the Alamodome, and a final AP ranking of No. 20. Quarterback Jayden Maiava started all thirteen games, throwing for 3,711 yards with 24 touchdowns and ten interceptions, and running for six more scores.

The money behind the fifth year

What changed around Riley was the infrastructure. USC hired Chad Bowden as general manager in January 2025; he rebuilt the personnel staff and the programme's NIL operation, and the recruiting class that signed for 2026 was ranked first in the country. Bowden has been blunt about the approach, saying USC is as aggressive as anyone and might be the most aggressive of all.

The building followed. Construction of the Bloom Football Performance Center began in November 2024 on the Athletics West campus, a $225 million project that opened in the summer of 2026 with two full-length fields; $174 million of the target had been raised while the frame was going up. The Coliseum itself has been getting attention too — the video board at the east end, opposite the peristyle, was replaced after the previous one, installed before the 2011 season, degraded into patches of dead tiles, with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics part of the reasoning.

The coaching staff turned over as well. Defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn left for Penn State and Eric Henderson for the Washington Commanders; Gary Patterson, whose defences at TCU built his reputation, arrived in January 2026 to run the unit. Speaking on 18 August, Riley set the bar himself: the programme was more equipped than at any point in the previous few years, and that was not a hope or a wish.

Four wins, then Oregon

USC opened at No. 14 in the preseason AP poll, a change from the unranked start of a year earlier, and won its first four. A Week 0 fixture on 29 August beat San José State 42–26 in front of 51,144. Fresno State were shut out 39–0 on 4 September before 53,014. Louisiana lost 49–30 on 12 September with 60,019 in the stadium, and the Big Ten road trip to Rutgers on 19 September produced a 42–35 win watched by 43,045.

The 26 September meeting with No. 20 Oregon drew 75,500 and went the other way. Oregon led 3–0, 13–10 and 27–20 at the quarter breaks before closing it out 41–27. It was also an ugly night: Oregon quarterback Dante Moore was hit late as he slid in the second quarter, linebacker Desman Stephens was ejected for targeting, and Moore left the field by ambulance after a fifteen-minute delay. Dan Lanning said afterwards that Moore was in recovery and moving. Nebraska transfer Dylan Raiola replaced him, went 19 of 25 for 289 yards and two touchdowns, and threw the go-ahead score to Dakorien Moore with 8:35 remaining.

Maiava finished with 326 passing yards, two touchdowns and an interception; King Miller carried thirteen times for 74 yards. USC dropped to 4–1 and 1–1 in the conference, a fifth straight defeat against former Pac-12 opposition, and sat No. 12 in both the AP and coaches' polls the following day.

What is left on the card

The home slate resumes with Washington on 3 October, then the trip to Penn State on 10 October — where Lynn now runs the defence — before Ohio State visit the Coliseum on 31 October and Maryland on 21 November. The UCLA fixture on 28 November is at the Rose Bowl.

Notre Dame are absent, and will be for a while. The schools played on 18 October 2025 at Notre Dame Stadium, a 34–24 Notre Dame win, and then failed to agree on future dates, largely over where in the calendar the game should sit: USC wanted it early, Notre Dame later. The series is set to resume in 2030, with four games through 2033 — Week 1 in 2030 and 2031, and somewhere in the first three weeks in 2032 and 2033.

The Coliseum on a match day

The stadium opened in 1923 and was reshaped by a $315 million renovation completed for the 2019 season, which cut capacity from more than 90,000 to 77,500 and added handrails, anti-slip coatings and three escalators up to the top tier. The 75,500 who watched Oregon was close to a full house; the 51,144 for San José State in Week 0 shows how far the number can move inside one season.

The set pieces are fixed. The Trojan Marching Band, the Spirit of Troy, plays Conquest; Traveler, a live Arabian horse ridden by a figure in Trojan armour, appears on the field; the Lighting of the Torch happens before the fourth quarter. Supporters kick the flagpoles on the way in for luck. Concessions run well past the standard stadium menu, with food trucks around the concourses selling Korean fried chicken, poutine, shrimp tacos and fresh-baked cookies, and beer served through the third quarter.

Stadium Journey's review scores the atmosphere 4 out of 5 and the venue 3.57 overall, and is candid about the drawbacks: the energy tracks the team's form, attendance sags in poor seasons despite plenty of tickets being available, the east-end seats are a long way from the field, and the upper-level steps are steep and uneven enough that the handrails matter. Getting there is the easy part — around 20,000 satellite parking spaces priced by proximity, and the Metro Expo Line running to the door.