ESPN's Bill Connelly gives detailed outlook for USC football in 2025
In a recent story, ESPN's Bill Connelly gave a detailed 2025 outlook for every Big Ten team. Here is what he had to say about USC.
"When you've gone just 15-13 in your last 28 games at USC, as Riley has since an 11-1 start, your name is going to automatically show up on "hot seat" lists. That's just the way it works. But damned if Riley isn't building his team like a guy with the best job security in the world. His Trojans' win total has fallen for two straight years, but he signed only 16 transfers, an average number in 2025, and less than half of them are seniors. He elected to stick with junior Jayden Maiava at quarterback after four solid but unspectacular starts. And despite losing quite a bit of depth from his first semi-competent defense in four years -- only 10 of 13 players with 300-plus snaps return -- he definitely didn't overdo it with portal guys.
"Riley reportedly has a pretty prohibitive buyout at the moment, and he's acting like it. Though this team does have a handful of pretty good seniors -- linebacker Eric Gentry and incoming transfers in running back Eli Sanders (New Mexico), cornerback DJ Harvey (San José State) and safety Bishop Fitzgerald (NC State) -- most of this team's best players are guys who will still have eligibility left in 2026, when members of what is currently a spectacular recruiting class come to town. Steel yourself for some serious USC hype this time next year, I guess.
"D'Anton Lynn did a nice job in his first season as defensive coordinator; the Trojans improved from 105th to 48th in defensive SP+, thanks mostly to big-play prevention and outstanding third-down defense. Safety Kamari Ramsey is the only returning starter in the secondary, but he's great, and Harvey and Fitzgerald should help. Gentry is a good playmaker at linebacker, and the addition of 330-pounder Keeshawn Silver (Kentucky) and 350-pounder Jamaal Jarrett (Georgia) up front should certainly provide some, uh, immovability. I don't expect an elite defense, but further improvement is likely.
"On offense, Maiava is a decent scrambler, Sanders and juco transfer Waymond Jordan are exciting and explosive additions, and slot receiver Makai Lemon averaged a whopping 3.0 yards per route, second in the conference.
"The line is more experienced, especially with the additions of senior transfers J'Onre Reed (Syracuse) and DJ Wingfield (Purdue), but I'm not sure about the upside there. Regardless, Riley should have enough to field another top-20 offense, develop further, win another seven or eight games and buy time for the cavalry to arrive in 2026."
While USC fans are certainly not expecting a national championship this season, another year of winning seven or eight games is certainly not what anyone is looking for. Riley and the Trojans will look to prove Connelly's projections wrong on the field this fall.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Nets rank 8th in ESPN's NBA rebuild rankings after summer league
The Brooklyn Nets officially began their current rebuild last summer when they shockingly traded guard Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks for multiple first-round picks over the next few years. Brooklyn has continued to take steps along the way to maximize their goal of acquiring draft capital and/or young players, but they appear to be falling behind other rebuilding teams as well. "When the Nets got back their draft picks for 2025 and 2026, the plan was not to wind up with the No. 8 pick. From that standpoint, the answer is no," ESPN wrote when discussing whether the Nets' rebuild is working at the moment. ESPN gave that explanation within its article ranking Brooklyn eighth in its latest rebuild list, indicating that the Nets are falling towards the middle of the pack in terms of the success of its rebuild. "But if Brooklyn can come out of next year with a high-end pick, then the Nets can at least begin to move forward," ESPN continued. "The Porter acquisition took a big chunk out of next summer's cap space, but the Nets will still have tens of millions to spend." After officially ending the Big 3 era in Brooklyn by trading away Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant during the 2022-23 season, the Nets have been trying to get back to the point were they can think about competing for titles again. The 2025 NBA Draft was Brooklyn's first chance to take advantage of the trades they have been making and they broke an NBA-record by taking five players in the same draft. Guard Egor Demin, one of the players that Brooklyn took with the eighth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, will be one of the faces of the Nets' rebuild given how much draft capital was invested in him. Other than that, Brooklyn is hoping that some of the younger players on the team, such as guard Cam Thomas and forward Noah Clowney, can develop into something more to give this rebuild a better chance of being successful. This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Nets rank 8th in ESPN's NBA rebuild rankings after summer league
NBC Sports
6 hours ago
- NBC Sports
Chris Paul on Clippers: 'I wanted to get back and play here.' Could it be for more than one year?
Chris Paul's re-introduction to Los Angeles ended up being more emotional than he expected, with hundreds of Clippers fans chanting 'C-P-3."It's kind of wild, kind of crazy,' Paul said of the experience. 'Still kind of speechless.' Paul has returned to the Clippers, where he played for six seasons, leading the 'Lob City' team alongside Blake Griffin, which was a contender in the West but was undone by a painful series of injuries and playoff collapses. Those were the peak CP3 years — in his first five years with the Clippers he never finished lower than seventh in MVP voting — and he averaged 18.8 points and 9.8 assists a game with the team. He's not returning because of nostalgia, however. He said it was a 'no brainer' to Los Angeles because this is where his family lives. 'This is one of those things that kind of manifested for a long time, sort of tried to speak it into existence, but you just never know if it's really gonna happen,' Paul said of his return. 'Because I love to hoop. I love to play this game, but I love my family more than any of it... 'I wanted to get back and play here by any means necessary.' He wanted to return enough that he told ESPN's Malika Andrews he could play a couple more seasons, despite the general expectation this season will be his last. Paul's role will be different with the Clippers than it was a season ago in San Antonio, where he started all 82 games. With the Clippers, Paul will come off the bench as part of a beefed-up second unit — the Clippers are older but have 11 solid rotation players Tyronn Lue can lean on. Lue was one of the reasons CP3 wanted to return. 'I'm excited to play for T. Lue, right?' Paul said of the Clippers' coach. 'See, people probably don't remember, T. Lue was my assistant coach when I was here with the Clippers, and we've stayed close over the years... 'There's a lot of great coaches in this league, but T. Lue is one of the coaches that I think teams, like you have to prepare for him too. It's weird being on other teams playing against the Clippers, because a lot of times you're just scouting, how do we stop Kawhi? How do we stop this? But just know a lot of teams respect T. Lue and his ability.' Paul, Lue and these Clippers are poised to win a lot of games this season — they won 50 a year ago and got better this offseason. That winning is something Paul wanted to be a part of, too. But mostly, the return was about his family, and they were on hand for his emotional day on Monday, too.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Offensive lineman DJ Wingfield files lawsuit against NCAA in bid to play for USC
When DJ Wingfield picked USC in the transfer portal last January, it seemed like an ideal one-year arrangement for both parties. The Trojans desperately needed experience on the interior of their already thin offensive line. Wingfield — after two seasons at a junior college, one at New Mexico and another spent at Purdue — was seeking to raise his profile in his final season of eligibility. USC offered him a clear path to playing time at left guard, as well as a $210,000 payday for his name, image and likeness. He just needed the NCAA to approve a waiver for him to play another season. Neither Wingfield nor USC figured that would be a problem at the time. But the NCAA denied Wingfield's initial request for a waiver in late March, then later denied his appeal. Read more: Wide receiver Kaedin Robinson suing NCAA in bid to play for UCLA this season So, with fall camp set to open this week, Wingfield took the only route remaining for him to play at USC: He filed a lawsuit against the NCAA, seeking injunctive relief in order to play for USC. Wingfield is seeking to challenge the lawfulness of the NCAA's 'Five-Year Rule', which contends that players are eligible to play four seasons of competition across five years. Both USC and Wingfield believed, according to the complaint, that his waiver would be approved, considering recent rulings in the cases of Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia and Rutgers' Jett Elad, each of whom won the right in court to play an additional season. But the waiver was denied, robbing Wingfield, he claims, of what could have been a 'once-in-a-lifetime' NIL payday as well as an opportunity to 'enhance his career and reputation' by playing at USC. 'The effect of the NCAA's anticompetitive conduct will be to penalize Wingfield for having attended a junior college and for the disruptions caused by the pandemic,' the complaint reads. 'The NCAA's anticompetitive conduct, coupled with its unreasonable denial of Wingfield's meritorious request for a waiver, thus threatens him with immediate irreparable harm.' Wingfield's collegiate career began in 2019 at El Camino College, a junior college in Torrance. He left El Camino during the 2020 season due to the pandemic, as Wingfield was tasked with taking care of his mother. He played at El Camino in 2021 before transferring to New Mexico in the spring of 2022. Before completing a single game with the Lobos, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee, ending his season. He returned to play in nine games in 2023 before entering the transfer portal. Wingfield transferred to Purdue where he earned a starting job in 2024, five years after he first started his college football career. Still, he figured the NCAA would look past that timeline, given his circumstances and the cascade of legal challenges claiming that the NCAA is violating antitrust laws by limiting athletes' eligibility. Now that decision — and Wingfield's college football future — is in the hands of a federal judge. Whatever that judge decides could have an adverse impact on the Trojans offense this season. Without Wingfield, USC would be perilously thin up front. His absence could mean sliding projected right tackle Tobias Raymond to guard, while sophomore Justin Tauanuu steps in as starting right tackle. Otherwise, USC is likely to turn to inexperienced sophomore Micah Banuelos at left guard. Read more: Times of Troy Sign up for more USC news with Times of Troy. In your inbox every Monday morning. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
