Matt Leinart On What He Considers To Be A ‘Successful Season' For The USC Trojans

Forbes

3 days ago

Matt Leinart knows the Lincoln Riley-led USC Trojans need to start making an impact this season.
After the Trojans went 11-3 during Riley's first season in 2022, they've declined over the past two seasons to middling results. USC went 8-5 during the 2023 season and 7-6 last year in their first season in the re-aligned Big Ten Conference. While it's highly unlikely the Trojans move on from Riley anytime soon — his buyout is worth $88 million — Leinart says that Riley is on the "hot seat" entering the 2025 season.
The Trojans great and former Heisman Trophy winner wants his alma mater to improve from last season and win more than eight games. The two-time National Champion says USC doesn't necessarily need to make it to the playoffs to have a "successful" season, but they need to show improvement and learn how to finish games.
"This feels like the year where we might be able to make a run," says Leinart in a one-on-one interview. "Is getting to the playoff the only definition that is (a successful season), I don't think so. But you want to see the improvement from last year, you got to win more than eight games. You have to be hyper competitive in the big ones, you don't want to take any steps back. You got to learn how to finish games."
USC is obviously in a stacked conference as one of the two superpower conferences in college football. The Ohio State Buckeyes are the defending national champions, the Penn State Nittany Lions advanced to the college football playoff semifinals and the Oregon Ducks entered as the top-seeded team in the playoffs after an unbeaten regular season.
However, it's worth noting that with the exception of the Nittany Lions, all of those aforementioned teams have new quarterbacks. The Trojans will return their starting quarterback from last season in Jayden Maiava. Maiava started the last four games last season, including lead the team to a 35-31 win in their bowl game over the Texas A&M Aggies.
"You're not going to win every game, and maybe you do, but you don't need to win every game to get into a playoff so you don't want to see any steps back." says Leinart. "The biggest thing for me with USC is, when you watch them last year, they were in almost every game. They were winning almost every game in the third or fourth quarter, and then they fell apart. Whether it was offense, whether it was defense, maybe it was Lincoln at times. Everybody has a role. I want to see that fixed."
It's worth mentioning the Trojans had five one-possession losses last season. In other words, Leinart's message that they need to learn how to close out games rings true.
"I want to see them close out a game," says Leinart. "I want to see them make a tackle on third down to get off the field. I want to see them run the ball more to win a game, four-minute offense, let's run the ball, control the clock and win this game. I want to see those things. I think I speak for a lot of USC fans, or just college football fans, those are the things that I want to see that I feel like, 'Oh, we're doing that.'"
The Trojans aren't even ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 polls, but they're expected to be a threat in the Big Ten. After the likes of the Buckeyes, Nittany Lions and Ducks, USC is arguably the fourth or fifth-best team in the conference alongside the Michigan Wolverines.
Their toughest matchups of the season are back-to-back matchups against the Michigan Wolverines and Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the midseason point. They'll also travel to Eugene, Oregon to face the Ducks towards the end of the season.
If they can learn how to close out games — and win two of those three games — the sky could be the limit for this team, with a potential College Football Playoff berth looming.
"We're on the right path, and we have the No. 1 recruiting class next year," says Leinart. "USC is starting to get the guys. Now it's, can you improve upon that?"
Leinart will forever be known for his legendary Trojans career — he led a 34-game win streak and went 37-2 as a starting quarterback — but he's enjoying his post-football career life. The 42-year-old is well-known among the current generation of fans for his work as a college football analyst on Fox Sports 1. He also hosts a podcast called "Throwbacks" with former Entourage star Jerry Ferrara.
However, he continues to remain active athletically, picking up pickleball as one of the sports he plays on a routine basis. Leinart actually recently played against 11-time Professional Pickleball Association champion Callie Jo Smith in a game of pickleball.
Playing pickleball and continuing to have the proper nutrition are what helps the 42-year-old stay "strong" as he continues to get older. One of the nutrition supplements that Leinart leans on is Abbott's Ensure Max Protein shake.
The Trojans great details how you suffer eight percent muscle loss each decade after turning 40 years old and it's a big reason why he decided to partner with Ensure Max Protein. Ensure Max Protein is the official protein shake of the PPA.
"For me personally, something I learned in this partnership that kind of hit me was, when you turn 40, you can lose up to 8% of your muscle every decade," says Leinart. "If you think about that, you're like, 'Wow. that's a pretty incredible number. What am I doing to make sure that doesn't happen and Ensure Max protein has become a big part of that. Just to get the proper protein, 30 grams of protein, the vitamins, all that stuff, is super important."
The former Trojans quarterback stresses wanting to stay "ahead" of that muscle loss curve by staying active physically and eating and drinking the right nutrients.
"I still feel young, I'm active, I'm still exercising," says Leinart. "Do I still lift weights and do all of these things? But how do I kind of get ahead of that. How do I maintain the muscles? What are things that I can do?
"Make sure you have this with you with Ensure Max protein because it can help," Leinart continues to say. "In the last year or two, it's really kind of just become a part of my everyday regimen. I'm on the go a lot. To be able to have Ensure Max Protein with me on the go, that's huge, because sometimes you get lost in schedules and routines and all that, you forget to eat lunch. It's been a big key and a game changer for me."
Leinart says pickleball is a sport he really started picking up back in 2021 for the "social" and "competitive" aspects that he loved while playing the game of football.
"I love pickleball, it kind of checks a lot of boxes for me," says Leinart. "As far as the social part, the competitive part, the exercise part, all those things. It's been a lot of fun to learn and play."
He says he joined a pro pickleball team called the New Jersey Fives and started to understand why pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the country. Leinart mentions that his wife plays it and that he himself will play pickleball for as long as he "can play it."
Leinart still plays golf and basketball but that pickleball is a "new challenge" for him, which is why he loves it so much.
"Pickleball was something that was really new to me," says Leinart. "This is new to me, it's a challenge, right? This gets my competitive juices flowing. It's a fun game that I can play with my wife. We can play against our friends, you can play couples and you can have fun doing it. Or you can get into tournaments, local tournaments. You can play competitively. It's just one of those games that's a lot easier to do in that sense."