The USC Trojans find themselves unranked going into the 2025 college football season. That may be for the best, since USC's better seasons in the past decade have come when there hasn't been any preseason hype. Still, the voters in the coaches' poll aren't confident about putting the Trojans in their Top 25 for good reason.
Coming off a 7-6 campaign, USC is an enigma. On the one hand, they lost six games. On the other hand, they beat LSU and led in the fourth quarter of five of their six losses. It's not that the Trojans were bad, they just couldn't finish.
So what'll it be in 2025? Will we see a USC team that learned from its mistakes and turns all those close losses into wins? Or will USC remain talented but flawed, incapable of taking that next step?
There are a lot of questions to answer, chief among them are these three...
Is Jayden Maiava the guy?
The one thing Lincoln Riley has always had is top tier quarterback play. The 2024 season didn't exactly produce that between Miller Moss and Jayden Maiava. Maiava replaced Moss for the final four games of the season and produced a 3-1 record. Where Moss struggled to make the plays to win games, Maiava specialized in that. He got the job done.
If that was the only factor, then USC would feel extremely confident in the quarterback going into the 2025 season. Unfortunately, the record isn't everything.
Picture a graph. One line represents Moss. It travels across the page at a relatively steady pace, straddling the line between positive and negative with minimal spikes. Another line represents Maiava. It spasms across the page, dipping and soaring unpredictably. Moss's highs weren't high enough to win games. Maiava's highs were. But his lows were also more extreme. His performance in the first three quarters of the Las Vegas Bowl was horrific. Somehow, he turned it around in the fourth, leading his team to victory with two magnificent touchdown drives. That was the Maiava experience.
USC needs Maiava to find the same peaks he did once he took the reins. But they also need him to cut out the valleys. They can't afford to live and die by the QB's wild fluctuations. Fortunately, there's reason to expect a steadier hand.
Maiava comes into the year as the incumbent starter. He's had more time to digest Riley's offense and learn his trade from one of the best. He's developing as a leader. He should be a more refined passer and decision maker this year. He already has a feel for winning games, and now Riley has had the time to mold him into something closer to all of his other successful quarterbacks.
Can Eric Gentry stay healthy?
USC's defense has steadily improved under defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn. With transfers like defensive tackle Keeshawn Silver and cornerback DJ Harvey, they've filled in gaps and strengthened the starting 11. Safety Kamari Ramsey is a star in the making. And Eric Gentry is a demon on the field when healthy. The problem is he hasn't been particularly healthy.
Injuries have been the undercurrent of Gentry's entire college football career. Last year, he played just five games — he took a redshirt after the first four games because of repeated concussions, then returned for the bowl game.
USC's coaching staff seems high on sophomore Desman Stephens and redshirt freshman Jadyn Walker. Even so, the state of the Trojans' linebacker corps will depend heavily on Gentry. He's a disruptive playmaker who makes the whole defense better, in part because teams have to account for his unique 6-foot-6 presence.
I want to believe Gentry can make it through the season unscathed. I want to believe he can put together an All-Big-Ten-type season. But I've been around long enough to know that sometimes injury-prone players are just that: Injury prone.
Can the USC offensive line be functional?
This isn't hyperbole: USC's offensive line alone will decide if the Trojans are in playoff debates or struggling for bowl eligibility. USC has come into many recent seasons with uncertainty up front. None of those past examples rise to the level of uncertainty around this unit.
Let's start with the good: Left tackle Elijah Paige and right guard Alani Noa have enough experience under their belt for their talent to begin to flourish. The potential there is solid. Right tackle Tobias Raymond is at a stage of development where he should be a functional piece. Center J'Onre Reed transferred in from Syracuse, providing veteran leadership and know-how. He should be a rock in the middle.
Now gear up for the bad and the ugly: Purdue transfer DJ Wingfield was the answer to losing left guard Emmanuel Pregnon to transfer. Now he's in the middle of a lawsuit over JUCO eligibility and can't practice or play. So redshirt sophomore Micah Banuelos is likely to be thrown into the fire as a first-time starter. As it stands, USC's offensive line will feature two returning starters, a senior transfer and two first-time starters with limited playing experience.
Will that starting five be functional? There is a decent chance they can make it work, especially if you have faith in offensive line coach Zach Hanson.
The bigger issue is what happens if literally any of those starting five goes down with an injury? Questionable recruiting and retention strategies on the offensive line over the years have left depth thin. Backup center Kilian O'Connor is a former walk-on, but he's undoubtedly the most stressfree backup plan. Other options for guard and tackle are nearly complete unknowns. USC's prized offensive line recruit in the class of 2024 — Jason Zandamela — is already gone. Sophomore tackle Justin Tauanuu and guards Makai Saina and Hayden Treter have good size, but these are former three-star prospects whose playability depends on just one year of development. Walk-on redshirt freshman Kaylon Miller is making waves in camp behind Noa and seems to be ahead of Saina and Treter in the guard pecking order.
All due respect to walk-ons, but USC's current two-deep features not one but two current or former walk-ons. That says a lot. It's not even clear if the starting five will be good. Having to depend on the backups would leave the Trojans in even more dire straits.