Joel Klatt Defends USC, Lincoln Riley, Says They Could Be '5-1 or 6-0'

The 2024 college football season for the USC Trojans and head coach Lincoln Riley started with immense promise. USC started with a 27-20 win over the favored LSU Tigers, immediately vaulting the Trojans into the conversation for a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff.

Just a month and a half later, USC has three losses, with hopes for a meaningful bowl game almost completely extinguished. After a 7-5 regular season record in 2023, Riley has been heavily criticized for the Trojans' disappointing results, with some suggesting he should be on the hot seat already.

But commentator Joel Klatt disagrees, defending the direction of the program and what Riley's done relative to past seasons.

"Nobody's gonna want to hear this, including Matt Leinart, but Lincoln Riley is right," Klatt said. "They are literally, three or four snaps from being 6-0. This is a young team, this is a team that everyone was going to say, kinda ‘wait and see,’ then the expectations went through the roof after that win against LSU and now they've played three other games where it came down to a play here or there, and they came up short. It's gotta be maddening for Lincoln Riley, because this team is battling and doing really good things, really good things, defensively in particular based on what they were a year ago and in previous seasons."

USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley reacts after a penalty against the California Golden Bears. (Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports)

Klatt Is Right About USC, Still Has Justified Criticisms

Despite the positives, Klatt did criticize Riley for how the end of regulation in the loss to Penn State played out. While saying he roots for "quality play," the Trojans' offense and time management in the fourth quarter did not meet that standard. While it was reasonable to want to keep the ball out of Penn State's hands with an opportunity to win, the Trojans may have been able to move the ball further into opposing territory and made a potential game-winning field goal shorter.

Klatt also brought up that USC has had a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter in all three of their losses, meaning that "They could easily be 5-1, 6-0 and we'd be singing a different tune." Despite the records, no one wants to play the Trojans, he continued. "You ask these teams that are playing USC, and they'll tell you, ‘that was really difficult.’"

Klatt's correct; USC is just a few plays away from being undefeated or 5-1 and squarely involved in the College Football Playoff conversation. But the Trojans didn't make those plays, when great teams should. Some of that can be chalked up to bad luck, randomness of sports, or in several cases, predictably atrocious officiating from the Big Ten Conference.

READ: Penn State Uses Beneficial Officiating To Outlast USC In Overtime

But at the end of the day, USC was still in position to win those three games, and didn't. Yes, the defense has improved, yes the depth at USC isn't what it should be and will get stronger, and yes there's plenty to point to that shows improvement. Still though, it falls on Riley to get USC over the hump to finish these games. The Trojans had 85+% win expectancy in all three losses. They lost all three. 

Quite simply, that's not acceptable from a school that wants to be a top-five program.