Lincoln Riley facing now or never moment with USC football | Opinion

They’ve given Lincoln Riley anything he has wanted at USC, everything to pull one of the top three programs in college football from the abyss of apathy.

Yet there were the Trojans last weekend, escaping Piscataway, N.J., after staving off the never-quit program that is big, bad Rutgers.

The same Rutgers that two weeks earlier lost to MAC afterthought UMass — by sixteen — on that very field.

“Listen, we’re not going to take road wins for granted in this league,” Riley said.

My god, what has happened to USC football?

It wasn’t that long ago when Pete Carroll had it rolling, when Los Angeles embraced USC and the rest of college football feared the mighty Trojans. Which is pretty much what it should be.

One of the greatest cities in America, and a college football team that strutted right along side it. The glam, the glitz, the glory.

Now reduced to acting like Rutgers is the second-coming of Ohio State.

“They’re all hard,” Riley said of Big Ten road games, not long after deciphering the how and why of giving up 35 points to Rutgers and leaving with a one-possession victory.

So it should come as no surprise that…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/sports/