{"id":85542,"date":"2025-12-07T23:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/85542\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T23:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:55:10","slug":"no-16-usc-will-face-surprise-opponent-tcu-in-alamo-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/85542\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 16 USC will face surprise opponent TCU in Alamo Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the 11th straight season and fourth time under coach Lincoln Riley<\/a>, USC<\/a> finished its season on the outside looking in at the College Football Playoff field.<\/p>\n

But it will get to finish this football season with a first.<\/p>\n

USC will face Texas Christian in the Alamo Bowl, a source not authorized to discuss the matchup publicly confirmed to The Times. The Trojans have never spent the bowl season in San Antonio, where the Alamo Bowl has been played since 1993.<\/p>\n

Their opponent comes as somewhat of a surprise considering the Horned Frogs finished 8-4 during the regular season, in a tie for fifth in the Big 12. The Alamo Bowl gets first selection of Big 12 teams and could have chosen Brigham Young, which lost in the Big 12 title game and, like USC, finished within one loss of the playoff field. But the bowl presumably passed on the Cougars because they took part in the game last season.<\/p>\n

For Riley, the bowl should bring back plenty of memories. First off, it comes against a coach he met as an 18-year old quarterback at Texas Tech, TCU\u2019s Sonny Dykes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLincoln and I go way back,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cHe was one of those guys you could tell early on in his career that he was going to be really successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riley\u2019s first experience calling plays also came at the Alamo Bowl, when Mike Leach, his mentor at Texas Tech resigned before the game. The experience proved bittersweet for Riley, but propelled him to new heights in his career, as he went on to be East Carolina\u2019s offensive coordinator shortly after. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the more emotional games I\u2019ve been a part of,\u201d Riley said. <\/p>\n

USC will head to San Antonio knowing that one more win on its resume might have earned the Trojans a bid. They ultimately finished 16th in the final College Football Playoff rankings, with two wins over top 25 teams (Michigan and Iowa) and two losses (Oregon and Notre Dame).<\/p>\n

An Alamo Bowl bid may not be much of a consolation to those who expected USC to compete for its first playoff appearance in 2025. But those hopes went out the window last month in Eugene, Ore., where the playoff-bound Ducks dealt the Trojans their third loss of the year.<\/p>\n

Since then, Riley has reiterated the importance of finishing this season strong, helping \u201cpave the road\u201d for the program going forward. That message helped inspire a dominant rivalry win over UCLA. Whether it will resonate through another bowl season without bigger stakes remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

USC can still finish with 10 wins for just the second time in the past eight seasons, the last being in Riley\u2019s debut season in 2022. The Trojans have finished strong in each of their past two seasons under Riley, beating Louisville in a thrilling Holiday Bowl at the end of the 2023 season and then mounting a comeback to upend Texas A&M in the 2024 Las Vegas Bowl.<\/p>\n

\"USC <\/p>\n

USC coach Lincoln Riley greets fans after a 29-10 win over UCLA at the Coliseum on Nov. 29.<\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

This time, the Trojans will enter their bowl as a clear favorite. TCU has one win over a ranked team this season \u2014 a 17-14 victory over No. 21 Houston \u2014 while their only other ranked matchup was a lopsided loss to BYU.<\/p>\n

TCU quarterback Josh Hoover is one of the Big 12\u2019s most prolific passers with 3,472 yards and 29 touchdowns this season. But he also led the league in interceptions (13). <\/p>\n

The Horned Frogs can move the ball through the air, but their opponents haven\u2019t faced much resistance, either. TCU ranks 108th in the nation in pass defense, making it statistically the worst pass defense USC has faced all season. <\/p>\n

USC will be without some key parts of its passing attack \u2014 and perhaps more. The offensive line will down two of its starters because of injuries \u2014 left tackle Elijah Paige and center Kilian O\u2019Connor \u2014 while key reserve Micah Banuelos entered the transfer portal this past week. <\/p>\n

The offense will almost certainly have to weather the absence of Makai Lemon, who is expected to skip the game upon declaring for the NFL draft. But fellow wideout Ja\u2019Kobi Lane\u2019s future plans are still unclear. Quarterback Jayden Maiava and running back Waymond Jordan have not confirmed whether they expect to return to help lead USC\u2019s offense in 2026.<\/p>\n

Riley said on Sunday that those situations would \u201cclarify here in the next few weeks.\u201d <\/p>\n

Eleven Trojans have entered the transfer portal since the end of the regular season, in part to clear the way for an incoming freshman class with 35 players. Several more could join them before USC reaches its bowl game. <\/p>\n

But with a potential 10-win season on the line, the Trojans will have something to play for in San Antonio. Albeit not what it once hoped.<\/p>\n

Riley said on Sunday that those situations would \u201cclarify here in the next few weeks.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the 11th straight season and fourth time under coach Lincoln Riley, USC finished its season on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48186,48181,48185,48183,48187,48184,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,11860,48189,7575,278,48182,48188,23138,3533],"class_list":["post-85542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-11th-straight-season","tag-alamo-bowl","tag-coach-lincoln-riley","tag-college-football-playoff-field","tag-first-selection","tag-fourth-time","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-matchup","tag-outside","tag-san-antonio","tag-season","tag-surprise-opponent-tcu","tag-texas-christian","tag-trojans","tag-usc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}