LOS ANGELES — Cut to the chase, why don’t we?
No need for a preamble, a warmup, an opening act.
No Rice, no San Jose State, no cupcakes on the menu this year. We’re skipping dessert and solely savoring the main course: No. 13 LSU vs. No. 23 USC, a game so juicy it could alter the course of both programs this season and beyond.
Yes, we’re talking a must-win Game 1.
I didn’t think there was such a thing, either. But consider the hefty ramifications of Sunday’s season-opening tilt in Las Vegas and tell me if that doesn’t change your mind too?
The Trojans need this. The fun thing is, so do the Tigers, who haven’t won an opener since their 2019 national title campaign. That includes dropping the past two to Florida State under head coach Brian Kelly, who can ill afford to lose another one of these.
LSU is a 4.5-point favorite against USC, but let’s be serious: This contest between college football titans, mirror images in so many ways, feels like a coin flip.
And if it goes the Trojans’ way, it’ll put them on a trajectory toward a real run at that 12-team College Football Playoff pool.
It will provide a jolt of confidence entering USC’s first season in the Big Ten. A boost internally among a team that’s proceeding with careful optimism, and also among fans and voters who don’t yet know what to make of a team that last year lost five of its final six regular-season games.
A win will answer some burning questions about what to expect from new quarterback Miller Moss and new coordinator D’Anton Lynn’s retooled, reimagined defense.
And it will give head coach Lincoln Riley – whose seat, though safe for now, is warming – room to exhale.
It’ll be just his second victory against a higher-ranked team since he took over in 2022, the only other coming in last season’s Holiday Bowl against No. 15 Louisville, a game in which USC – ranked No. 6 at the start of the season – was unranked.
Such a victory on Sunday? With all eyes on what will be the only football game happening in America that evening? Against an opponent who could require Riley to show all his cards up front?
A tone-setting triumph. Forward progress for real.
But flip it and opportunity becomes catastrophe. The big break a bad break. Things get real dark, real fast down in that hole the Trojans will have dug themselves.
Remember when Oregon got smacked by No. 3 Georgia in the opener two seasons ago, how the Ducks slid from No. 11 to outside of the top 25?
Such a trip-up would mean an awful lot of ground to make up for a playoff aspirant – especially one with such a trying docket ahead: After Utah State on Sept. 7, the Trojans will play at No. 9 Michigan, host Wisconsin, travel to Minnesota and then host No. 8 Penn State.
And what if we get wrong answers only in regard to those questions about Moss and whether he can sufficiently fill former Heisman Trophy-winner Caleb Williams Bear-sized cleats? Or even look enough like the QB who three himself a six-touchdown coming-out party in the Holiday Bowl?
Think those Big Ten opponents might start licking their chops?
And what if Lynn’s defense isn’t better enough? What if we learn that the success he had with the UCLA’s top-10-ranked defense last season had less to do with him and his schemes and more with the NFL talent he inherited in his one season in Westwood, Laiatu Latu and Darius Muasau and the Murphy twins, Gabriel and Grayson?
Imagine the pressure intensifying, the pinching headaches.
And imagine the hot takes on ESPN’s “First Take” when it comes to the Trojans’ coach. Riley enters play Sunday with a 19-8 record since leaving Oklahoma, and he’s already being labeled a “disaster” and responsible for “one of the worst coaching jobs I have ever seen” by Paul Finebaum – what worse could that guy come up with? How soon until he’s leading a vitriolic chorus of boos?
Conversely, I have to wonder: What will be Finebaum’s follow-up if USC wins?
There is one guaranteed winner in this game that could go either way: You, the fan.
All of us invested onlookers who are being treated to the type of nonconference, regular-season heavyweight showdown that’s soon likely to be all but extinct.
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Watch, coaches in these vast new super-powered conferences will start ducking these sorts of high-stakes, extracurricular, out-of-conference challenges. Riley already reportedly wanted out of this LSU matchup, and he’s openly considering dropping Notre Dame, rich tradition be damned.
And watch TV networks – or, actually don’t watch – have their say, and just say no. No to a member of the Big Ten (whose games are broadcast on CBS and FOX) facing off against a foe from the SEC (whose games go out on ABC and ESPN). No if it’s going to mean a ratings bonanza for the rival network, fans be damned.
Because, yes, there is such a thing as a make-or-break season opener. But these sound-check gut checks are rare, and increasingly so – because there is entirely so much on the line.
A toast, then, to the Trojans and Tigers, two teams taking on the challenge cold this time.
Asked Lincoln Riley about the challenge of approaching a program like LSU in Week 1 with no tune-up game.
— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) August 28, 2024
Part of answer: “I like it. I like playing a marquee game early. I like playing a good opponent early.” pic.twitter.com/0namjGNgd7