Expectations can be a blessing and a burden in college football. On November 28, 2021, the USC campus went into a state of euphoria. The Trojans had landed a coach who had left a healthy, top-tier program at Oklahoma, where he had won four consecutive Big 12 championships. USC was making a symbolic statement: it was finally ready to use its immense financial resources to pull off a move that could take the program back to the promised land. Almost five years later, the sentiment appears to have turned 180 degrees.

After USC’s 41-27 defeat to the Oregon Ducks at the Coliseum, the calls for Lincoln Riley’s job have grown louder. Not because he has been bad, per se, but because $110 million for a coach who is merely good enough isn’t… well, good enough.

Analyst Josh Pate, who has been one of Riley’s staunchest defenders, finally pulled his support. He believes that Riley is following a path similar to James Franklin’s at Penn State last year, pointing to an imminent coaching change at USC.

“They got beat by UCLA, they got beat by Northwestern. Franklin’s out of a job by October,” Pate said, according to an X post from ESPN College Football. “The impact of that was more than one loss because of how much had been invested from an emotional standpoint into the outcome of that game. If you talk to USC people, everything that applied to what I just said about Penn State last year applied to this last weekend’s game against Oregon.”

Pate also drew a comparison to James Franklin, who was fired by Penn State last season. Like USC, the Nittany Lions had high hopes before a Week 5 home loss to Oregon changed the course of their season. They then suffered back-to-back upset losses to UCLA and Northwestern, which eventually cost Franklin his job.

Pate believes Oregon could have triggered a similar chain of events for Riley at USC.

The analyst also argued that USC has given Riley the necessary resources to turn the program around. The Trojans have hired three defensive coordinators during Riley’s five-year tenure and opened the $200 million Bloom Football Performance Center.

They provided Riley with a front office designed to help with personnel and roster management, while USC entered 2026 with the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class. And on Saturday, 75,500 fans showed up for the Oregon game after the program faced criticism over lower season-opening attendance.

The Trojans had tied the game at 27 in the fourth quarter, with Riley calling the home crowd the loudest he had heard during his time at USC. However, Oregon quickly responded with a touchdown to retake a 34-27 lead.

With 7:15 left and USC facing 4th-and-7 from its own 49-yard line, Riley chose to go for it instead of punting and trusting his defense. Jayden Maiava’s pass fell incomplete, giving Oregon the ball at the USC 49. Backup quarterback Dylan Raiola then led an eight-play drive that took time off the clock before ending with a touchdown to make it 41-27 with just 2:03 left. USC never recovered, turning a close game into a two-touchdown loss.

It was another example of how thin the margin for error has become around Riley. The results have simply not matched the expectations USC and its fans had.

Riley has the same overall record (39-19) as Clay Helton, who faced heavy criticism toward the end of his time at USC. He has also struggled against top teams, falling to 5-15 against AP-ranked opponents. When he left Oklahoma for USC, the expectation was that he would quickly take the Trojans to their first College Football Playoff. Instead, USC averaged five losses per season over the three years before 2026, keeping the program out of the national title picture.

Riley’s contract makes the decision on his future at USC complicated, with his $70 million buyout set to become even more expensive if he remains under contract through 2031. USC could still afford the payout if its boosters are willing to help cover it. However, even for a well-funded school, paying to move on from one coach while hiring another is a major expense.

“Put yourself in their position,” Pate said. “They do all that, and then the other guy [The Ducks] is missing his starting quarterback and the backup still beats us by double digits. We’re out. That’s the collective attitude there. He will not get that thing back. That’ll be it for Lincoln Riley at USC.”

Lincoln Riley responds to USC’s growing concerns after the Oregon loss

With the noise growing louder after every matchup, Riley has had to answer for where his program stands and whether he’s still the right man to lead it. Riley pushed back on the idea that everything is falling apart, pointing to the silver lining in the loss against Oregon.

“Just by winning,” Riley said, according to Jordan Mendoza of USA Today. “Look, we didn’t get run out of the stadium. There’s a lot of good things on that tape. There’s a lot of young guys making a lot of plays.

“There is a lot of good on that tape. You don’t have a chance to win a game like that if you don’t do some things pretty well. So we got to capitalize on those, and we got to attack the areas we got to be better at.”

For Riley, his confidence in the program will be tested more when USC faces Washington, Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana next in the schedule. Whether Riley can turn things around or ends up leaving USC, as Pate believes, could depend on how the Trojans perform in the big games ahead.