USC football: 5 great Trojans who didn’t live up to the NFL hype

Keith Rivers didn’t find success with the Bengals.

High expectations were placed on Keith Rivers from the moment he signed with the Trojans. The USC football coaching staff awarded the linebacker No. 55, a highly coveted honor as it’s handed out to stars in the making at linebacker, notably going to the likes of Willie McGinest and Junior Seau before him. So it’s safe to say that the program saw the elite potential of Rivers from the moment he was in high school.

After essentially waiting his turn in the 2004 and 2005 seasons and playing only as a reserver, the expectations for Rivers reached a national scale. He was on every award watch list and, though he didn’t end up winning any hardware, he was selected by the coaches in the conference as a First-Team All-Pac-10 selection after notching 78 tackles.

Rivers returned for his senior season and was a dominant player on defense was again. Not only did he once again earn the nod as a First-Team All-Pac-10 selection but he was also named an All-American as well. After his prolific and highly touted college career, he was selected No. 9 overall in the 2008 NFL Draft by the Cincinnati Bengals.

While Rivers did have two seasons in his NFL career with more than 70 combined tackles, he never lived up to the billing as a top-10 draft pick. In fact, his biggest impact may have been being the recipient of a nasty blindside block from Hines Ward that brought about the “Hines Ward rule”. Regardless, he played only 74 career games and retired in 2015 after signing with the Dallas Cowboys earlier that year.