USC, Lincoln Riley have no juice, only excuses for average football

We've become a society of excuses, a disease that has somehow filtered into football — where there are no excuses.

USC played in front of, maybe, 20,000 fans Saturday against San Jose State, and we’re suddenly blaming the 100-degree heat.

And the noon kickoff. And the opponent. And Notre Dame for not accepting a Week 0 invitation in the first place.

Meanwhile, back in the real world when USC was relevant and successful — you know, like a top-three program in all of college football should be — the Trojans had 84,325 fans for the season opener in 2009 against San Jose State.

At 12:30 p.m., with weather in the 90s.

The difference, you ask? One coach (Pete Carroll) had a track record of winning big and filling the joint. The current coach (Lincoln Riley) doesn’t.

But sure, let’s make excuses for the Coliseum looking like a mausoleum. Let’s talk about stadium seats in the refurbished stadium feeling like “hot plates.”

For the love of all things Tommy Trojan, they sat on those old, plastic theater chairs in 2009 and weren’t complaining about the heat. Nor were they complaining about lowly San Jose State scoring 26 points on the mighty…

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