USC Trojans football coach Lincoln Riley was the 17th of 18 Big Ten program leaders to take the podium at the conference media days, which wrapped up Thursday in Las Vegas.
Riley is facing significant pressure as he enters his fourth year with USC after two less-than-thrilling seasons. The Trojans finished first in the Pac-12 (11-3, 8-1) in 2022, but fell to No. 5 in 2023 with a 8-5 (5-4) record. Last season, USC’s first in the Big Ten, the team recorded a 7-6 (4-5) record.
The head coach was asked Thursday about the significance of the rivalry between the Trojans and Notre Dame, and whether where that game falls on the schedule is significant.
“Do I want to play the game? Hell yeah, I want to play the game,” Riley said. “When I decided the night at my house to take the USC job, my first thought was ‘I get to coach in USC/ Notre Dame.’ So first thought. Because before coach, player, any of that, as a fan, the rivalry, all these rivalries mean a great deal to me. They mean a great deal to anybody that cares about college football.”
For Riley, moving forward with the rivalry will depend on the future of the College Football Playoff format, given USC’s conference membership and Notre Dame’s lack of conference affiliation.
“I think there's a million reasons why we should very seriously, as a college football community, we should adopt the automatic qualifying in terms of the College Football Playoff, and this might be the most important one,” Riley said. “That we give every reason for college football to preserve non-conference games that mean a lot to the history of the game, and to the fan bases and the former players and everybody that's been associated with it. So I'm very hopeful that we can get there, and I'm very hopeful that we play this game forever.”
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