USC should be a better team than Michigan State. But USC lost to plenty of teams with inferior talent in 2024. Jonathan Smith also happens to be a good coach. I get the feeling Michigan State is the type of team that could sneak up on people this year.

That game, at that juncture of the season, is a critical waypoint for USC and Riley. A surprise loss would leave the Trojans on uncomfortably shaky ground heading into the thick of their schedule. Three of their next four games are on the road — Illinois, Notre Dame and Nebraska — while the other is probably their toughest home game (Michigan). All four are possible losses.

But let’s spot USC one win — at Nebraska, perhaps? — and say they emerge from that gauntlet at a disappointing 4-4. By then, fans will no doubt be sharpening their pitchforks. And there’s still a road trip to Eugene left on the schedule.

USC has just one win in Eugene since the 2005 season, and it has been nine years since USC beat Oregon at all. Even in the best-case scenario, winning would be a tall task.

One more loss after that would leave USC right back where it was at the end of last season. And it’s not hard to imagine how Iowa or UCLA, both with shiny new quarterbacks, might have improved. Even Northwestern could be better than its 4-8 record from a year ago indicates.

Is there a world in which USC needs to beat UCLA just to make a bowl game? It’s not out of the question.

To reach that nadir — or rather, to reach it again — would presumably mean the Jayden Maiava Experience is still just as volatile as it was last season. Maybe an unproven offensive line struggles to protect him against a schedule loaded with ferocious pass rushers. Maybe injuries expose how thin the Trojans are up front first.

I have a harder time envisioning how things would unravel on defense, which is a testament to what D’Anton Lynn has accomplished in 18 months. Any true worst case on that side of the ball probably means losing potential All-American linebacker Eric Gentry to injury (featured yelling in black shirt on sidelines), something Lynn and his defense already weathered last season.

However USC might arrive at its worst-case scenario, a 6-6 record would not inspire much confidence in Riley. I also don’t believe it would be bad enough to get him fired.

We don’t know exactly where Riley’s buyout would stand after his fourth season at USC, but trust that it’s still hefty. A new university president probably wouldn’t be so jazzed about paying tens of millions to a fired football coach after inheriting a serious financial crisis.

There’s also the matter of the No. 1 recruiting class in college football, which USC can’t afford to see fall apart, and the five-star quarterback waiting in the wings after Maiava. That’s not something you risk unless things have become untenable.

And maybe there is a timeline for this college football season in which it does get that dark at USC. But even the skeptic in me feels like 6-6 is the absolute floor for a team as talented as this one.

So where, between its best-case and worst-case scenarios, will this season fall for USC?

Stock options

Lincoln Riley with USC TE Walker Lyons during a game last season. (Gina Ferazzi/LAT)

So much can change in a short few weeks of fall camp. But here are eight players — four freshmen and four returning players — that I’m buying stock in, at the midway mark …

DT Devan Thompkins  —  No sense in ignoring the hype any more. Everyone agrees that Thompkins is a foundational piece of the Trojans’ front now. He’s locked in next to Keeshawn Silver up front, even with Jide Abasiri pushing for more time.

DE Kameryn Fountain  —  If not for Gentry, Fountain would be my favorite to lead the Trojans in sacks. He always had the ability, but his football IQ seems to have taken a major step forward.

RB Waymond Jordan  —  Here’s another player whose effusive praise is now impossible to ignore. No one seems to be entertaining the idea that Jordan and Eli Sanders could equally split carries. Pretty clear that Jordan is the guy.

TE Walker Lyons  —  Lyons caught just six passes as a freshman, but intuition tells me he’s bound for a much bigger role as a sophomore. Don’t be surprised if he and Lake McRee are on more equal ground than you’d expect.

DT Floyd Boucard  —  A few years ago, Boucard might have started on USC’s defensive line as a freshman. Now USC is deep enough to not have to worry about that. Though, Boucard and his natural pass-rush instincts may be too impressive to ignore.

DB Alex Graham  —  After only a few months with USC’s defense, Graham is already working at three positions. That might overwhelm most freshman, but Graham seems to have responded well. With Prophet Brown out with an injury, expect him to play a role in 2025.

OT Elijah Vaikona  —  It’s impossible to miss Vaikona — the word most often used to describe him is “massive.” What we didn’t expect was how rapidly he’d be able to sharpen his otherwise raw skill set. I’m buying as much stock as I can now, before he establishes himself as the Trojans’ obvious left tackle of the future.

RB Harry Dalton III  —  File this away as an investment for 2026. Among the young running backs in the room, Dalton has stood out the most to me. Which is especially impressive when you consider he was a high school quarterback.

Extra points

Prophet Brown  (Kirby Lee / Getty Images)

—We should know by next week if DJ Wingfield is suiting up for USC this season. Wingfield’s eligibility case was transferred to a new judge last week, the same judge that’s set to rule on two other similar eligibility cases. Those cases have since been combined into one mega-hearing, set for Aug. 18. That’s when the judge will determine if Wingfield, as well as UCLA transfer wideout Kaedin Robinson, deserve injunctive relief in their lawsuits against the NCAA. Wingfield’s side is claiming that the NCAA’s Five-Year rule violates antitrust law. Whether that argument holds up is anyone’s guess, but the judge has offered some indication in the past that antitrust rules don’t apply in this situation. That would be bad news for Wingfield, if he stays consistent with that thinking.

—Losing Prophet Brown for part of the season is a bigger deal than you probably think. Over most of his first four seasons, Brown was never really more than a bit player in USC’s secondary. But since the preseason began, Riley, Lynn and secondary coach Doug Belk each brought up Brown unprompted, to point out the massive leap they thought he’d taken. All signs were pointing toward a breakout year … until Brown suffered a noncontact injury last week in practice. Now it’s not clear what USC plans to do at slot corner. Perhaps it makes the most sense for DJ Harvey to shift inside on nickel packages, while Chasen Johnson and DeCarlos Nicholson play outside corner. Other times, we may see Kamari Ramsey move from his usual safety spot to the slot. Freshman Alex Graham is another player to watch at that spot, given how quickly coaches say he has picked up the defense.

—Extending Andy Stankiewicz was critical to USC baseball’s future. When Stankiewicz took over as coach in 2023, the program was in total disarray. The Trojans hadn’t been to an NCAA tournament since 2015. They had one 30-win season since 2005. Since, in three years under Stankiewicz, USC hasn’t won fewer than 31 games in any season. Stankiewicz had two years left on his initial deal and would have been the target of other schools soon enough. Stankiewicz said in the spring how much he loved USC, even though it was clear the school wouldn’t match the investment of other college baseball powers. By extending him, USC made the smart decision to give Stankiewicz a raise now and the program some security for the foreseeable future.

—Don’t waste your energy getting mad about preseason polls. Or award watch lists. USC was not included in the initial AP Top 25 poll which dropped Monday afternoon. The Trojans landed at #30. That might make you upset. But it shouldn’t. The only thing more useless in the college football discourse than preseason polls are award watch lists. This week, the Doak Walker Award issued a preseason watch list that included three Trojan running backs. Fans took this to mean that USC has the best backfield in America. As much as I like Bryan Jackson’s skill set, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, y’all.