LOS ANGELES — The calendar’s rolled into December, and little has quite changed from last December, with USC regrouping in wait for a postseason that’s really more of a preseason.
At the end of 2023, the prospect of playing in the Holiday Bowl seemed a lose-lose situation: another loss further damning a trying season, a win still falling massively short of season-long hopes. But USC’s performance, in San Diego against Louisville, served a springboard for an offseason of hope and good vibrations: new quarterback, new defensive philosophy, new culture.
Little came to tangible fruition, in a 6-6 2024 season. But the opportunity to win back the same surge of faith in the program’s direction, still, awaits.
And USC will end this year in the same place it began: at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, facing an SEC opponent. The Trojans will face Texas A&M in the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 27, the bowl announced on Sunday afternoon. It’s a poetic bookend dating back to September, when a new-look USC program came away with the first true signature win of Lincoln Riley’s tenure with a 27-20 win over LSU — before his third year in Southern California devolved into a mess of late-game collapses.
Much has changed, since that Sept. 1 win, suddenly vaulting USC for weeks into the upper half of top-25 rankings. Miller Moss, who lit up LSU in his first-ever regular-season start as USC’s quarterback, is transferring after being benched late in the season for Jayden Maiava. Receiver Kyron Hudson, who came away the star with two miraculous one-handed grabs, followed Moss to the portal. Running back Woody Marks, who ran in the eventual go-ahead touchdown over those Tigers, may have played his last game in a Trojans jersey after exiting with an injury in last weekend’s loss to Notre Dame.
Still, there’ll be plenty to watch for in Vegas.
Maiava will finish out a four-game bid for USC’s starting job in 2025, as Lincoln Riley made clear on last week’s signing day that the Trojans would look for a quarterback in the transfer portal. The stage could be set, too, for a true breakout for redshirt-freshman back Quinten Joyner, who ran for 478 yards on 7.6 yards a carry in backing up Marks in 2024. And linebacker Eric Gentry, far and away USC’s best defensive player through four games, appears set to return after concussions shut him down for much of USC’s regular season.
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With the Las Vegas Bowl slated for a matchup between current and former Pac-12 programs and an SEC opponent, it seemed possible USC could draw 6-6 Oklahoma, the narratives blooming after Riley’s departure from Norman three years ago. Instead, USC lands A&M (8-4, 5-3 SEC) an unmistakably stronger opponent who presents a challenge not unlike Notre Dame a week ago. Quarterback Marcel Reed is a dual-threat nightmare, and A&M’s secondary has limited opposing programs to a 53% completion rate.
In the days and weeks to come, USC will see a number of key players make decisions as to their bowl-game futures: chief among them is Kamari Ramsey, as a source told the Southern California News Group the safety is currently planning to play in USC’s bowl game despite a bright draft future. By the 27th, however, the Trojans might be auditioning a wide range of backups and youngsters against the Aggies — the same makeup that yielded such a blooming bowl result in 2023.