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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Pete Fiutak

USC Trojans Preview 2022: Season Prediction, Breakdown, Key Games, Players

What college football program is better prepared for the new era of the sport than USC?

For all those crying about the recent changes being the end of college football as we know it … yup. You want the closest thing you’re going to get to a professional college football team? Here you go (and it’s going to be okay, really).

NIL? The transfer portal? Social media? Marketing opportunities? Endorsements? Celebrity stardom?

Tuscaloosa and Columbus are nice and all, but …

THIS. This is the place that knows how to do it right.

This city. This media market. This program. It’s USC, and it pounced on the moment to go from depressing and dreary to showtime in a blip.

How good is USC at this? It pivoted fast to be the place for Pitt’s Biletnikoff Award-winning receiver Jordan Addison, and get running back Travis Dye away from Oregon, and land a whole slew of fantastic other transfers and recruits.

And it was the one college job that made sense for Lincoln Riley to leave Oklahoma for – the guy could be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys right now and no one would blink.

Everything is coming together at once to revive a superpower that should be able to keep all the top talent at home, and come after your top guys, too, because this is now the place every 2022-and-beyond-savvy college football player will want to be.

And NOW THE BIG TEN?! You want to take an already big-name brand and make it even more massive?

Now, there might be a downside to all of this.

It’s certainly possible that all the outside distractions, and egos, and financial interests, and other parts of the new world puzzle make this implode in spectacular fashion, but that’s part of the allure, too.

It’s entertainment – who doesn’t want to see what USC is going to do, or root for it to be an epic fail, or see just how great it might become?

Everyone will tune in to check out the show.

The coaching, the money, the opportunities, the schedule that’s not the SEC West – like Riley wanted to beat his head against that wall – the high-powered offense, the defense that’s going to attack …

USC is going to be a thing again.

And college football is going to be more fun because of it.

Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

USC Trojans Preview
Head Coach: Lincoln Riley 0-0, 1st year at USC
6th year overall, 55-10, 2021 Preview
2021 Record: Overall: 4-8, Conference: 3-6
Offense, Defense Breakdown | Keys To The Season
Season Prediction, What Will Happen
USC Top 10 Players | USC Schedule & Analysis

USC Trojans Preview 2022: Offense, Defense NEXT

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