Lincoln Riley’s USC Program Hit a New Low in Ugly Oregon Loss

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USC didn’t just lose another big game under Lincoln Riley. A frightening hit on Oregon quarterback Dante Moore and everything that followed made this one feel much worse.

Lincoln Riley has experienced more consequential losses during his five seasons at USC. He has lost games that ended College Football Playoff hopes, games that exposed terrible defenses and games that made people wonder whether the Trojans would ever become the national championship contender they expected when Riley arrived from Oklahoma.

Saturday’s 41-27 loss to No. 20 Oregon felt different.

This wasn’t simply another big game USC couldn’t win.

This was ugly.

No. 12 USC lost at home despite Oregon playing most of the game without starting quarterback Dante Moore, who was taken from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum by ambulance following a frightening hit from Trojans linebacker Desman Stephens II.

Then came Stephens’ reaction.

Then came Riley’s response.

And eventually came another Oregon victory, leaving USC with plenty of questions that have little to do with whether the Trojans can still salvage their season.

Desman Stephens hit changes everything

Moore scrambled during the second quarter and began sliding near the USC 12-yard line when Stephens delivered a violent hit to the quarterback’s head.

Stephens was ejected for targeting.

Moore remained on the field for several minutes as medical personnel attended to him before he was placed on a stretcher, loaded onto a cart and eventually transported by ambulance to Los Angeles General Medical Center. Oregon coach Dan Lanning said afterward that Moore had movement in all of his extremities.

The hit was bad enough.

What happened immediately afterward made the situation even uglier.

Stephens celebrated while Moore remained down, and the scene helped ignite a confrontation between the teams. After being ejected, Stephens later returned to the USC sideline, where television cameras showed him interacting and celebrating with teammates.

Lanning didn’t mince words afterward, calling the hit “disgusting.”

Riley said he didn’t see Stephens’ celebration following the play.

Asked why an ejected Stephens was allowed to remain with the Trojans on the sideline, Riley offered an answer that will receive plenty of scrutiny.

“Why? Because he’s on our football team,” Riley said.

Technically, that’s true.

It also misses the larger issue.

A head coach doesn’t have to see every action that occurs during a football game. But once the severity of the hit became apparent and Stephens had been ejected, USC had an opportunity to make clear what was acceptable inside its program.

Instead, Stephens remained on the sideline.

Oregon responded in the most painful way possible for USC

If the Trojans expected Moore’s departure to make Oregon easier to beat, that didn’t happen.

Backup quarterback Dylan Raiola entered and shredded USC’s defense.

Raiola completed 20 of 26 passes for 289 yards and two touchdowns as Oregon piled up 504 total yards. The Ducks scored on six of their final seven possessions and won their fifth consecutive game against USC.

Think about that for a moment.

USC was playing at home.

The Trojans entered ranked No. 12.

Oregon lost its starting quarterback in the second quarter.

And USC still surrendered 41 points.

That might be the most damaging football takeaway of all.

For years, the explanation for USC’s shortcomings under Riley centered on defense, roster construction and the time necessary to rebuild the program. Riley changed defensive coordinators. USC invested heavily in its football infrastructure. The roster improved.

The excuses were supposed to be gone.

Yet when USC needed its defense to win a meaningful game Saturday, the Trojans couldn’t stop Oregon’s backup quarterback.

USC had its opportunity — and blew it

The Trojans weren’t dominated from start to finish.

Jayden Maiava threw for 326 yards and two touchdowns, and USC battled back to tie the game at 27 with less than 13 minutes remaining.

The Coliseum was alive.

USC had momentum.

Then came the kind of sequence that has become painfully familiar during the Riley era.

The Trojans appeared to stop Oregon on third-and-long, but Jide Abasiri was called for roughing the passer. Five plays later, Raiola found Dakorien Moore for the touchdown that put Oregon ahead 34-27.

USC got the ball back and soon faced fourth-and-7 with more than seven minutes remaining.

Riley went for it.

Maiava’s pass fell incomplete.

Oregon took over near midfield, drove for another touchdown and essentially ended the game.

“We had all the momentum in the world,” Riley said afterward. “But you can’t do that against good teams and good offenses.”

That’s exactly the problem.

Five years into the Riley era, USC keeps finding different ways to explain why it loses these games.

At some point, the explanation matters less than the result.

Lincoln Riley still hasn’t delivered what USC paid for

USC didn’t hire Riley merely to become respectable again.

The Trojans made one of college football’s biggest coaching splashes because they believed Riley could restore USC to national prominence.

When Riley was introduced in 2021, he famously declared that the Coliseum would become “the mecca of college football.”

Nearly five years later, USC still hasn’t reached the College Football Playoff under Riley.

Saturday represented another chance to change the narrative.

Instead, Riley fell to 0-3 against Oregon coach Dan Lanning, and the Ducks have now won five straight in the series.

Lanning made sure USC heard about it afterward.

“Three wins against these guys,” Lanning said. “I guess if you’re from this area and you’re interested in winning football games, you should go to Oregon. If you’re interested in going to a Chris Brown concert, you should go here.”

That’s brutal.

It’s also the sort of comment USC once wouldn’t have had to answer.

Opponents feared coming to the Coliseum during the Pete Carroll era. Now an opposing coach can beat USC in its own building and use his postgame press conference to mock the Trojans’ program.

USC’s problems are suddenly bigger than one loss

USC is 4-1. Its season isn’t over.

The Trojans still have opportunities against Washington, Penn State, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Indiana before finishing against UCLA.

Riley insists this USC team is different.

“We have a damn good football team,” he said Saturday. “I know we do.”

Maybe he does.

USC will have plenty of chances to prove it.

But Saturday wasn’t merely about whether the Trojans are good enough to make the College Football Playoff.

It was about discipline. Accountability. Leadership. And whether a program with USC’s resources and expectations is actually moving any closer to where Riley promised he would take it.

The Trojans lost another important football game Saturday.

The way they lost — and everything that surrounded it — made this one much harder to dismiss as just another loss.

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