USC's Lincoln Riley under pressure as Alabama's Kalen DeBoer emerges in replacement talk

The conversation around USC has shifted from whether Lincoln Riley can get the Trojans into the College Football Playoff to who might coach them if he can't. EssentiallySports reports that Alabama's Kalen DeBoer is widely viewed as the top name should USC make a change. The report points to a clip shared by 247Sports in which Talty called DeBoer's place atop that list something of an open secret in the industry.

The connection is easy to trace. USC athletic director Jen Cohen hired DeBoer at Washington in November 2021, the day after USC hired Riley. DeBoer went 25-3 in two seasons there, won the 2023 Pac-12 title and reached the national championship game. An April extension put his Alabama deal at seven years and $87.5 million, or $12.5 million a year through January 2033. That means USC would have to outbid Alabama to get him. According to EssentiallySports, the Trojans could offer more than $13 million a year. The report names BYU's Kalani Sitake as a fallback if DeBoer stays in Tuscaloosa.

Riley isn't conceding anything. At his Tuesday news conference he said he wants to stay, telling reporters, "I'm the right person to be here," according to ESPN. He is 41-20 at USC without a Playoff appearance. Removing him would be expensive, with his buyout estimated at about $70 million. Still, USC has fired coaches during the season before: Clay Helton two games into 2021 and Steve Sarkisian five games into 2015.

The pressure grew last Saturday. Wisconsin beat USC 24-7 in Madison, and EssentiallySports reports that the seven points were the fewest the Trojans have scored under Riley. The result dropped USC out of the AP Top 25 at 6-2. It also undid some of the progress from a 31-23 win at Penn State the week before. The other loss came against Oregon, 41-27 in late September. DeBoer's own position isn't spotless, either. Alabama is also 6-2 after October losses to Georgia and Tennessee.

What it means against Ohio State

The timing is about as hard as it gets. No. 2 Ohio State comes to the Coliseum on Saturday, October 31, on NBC, and the rest of the schedule runs through Indiana on November 14, Maryland on November 21 and UCLA to finish. A third loss would badly damage USC's hopes for the Big Ten title game. It would also give the DeBoer talk more to work with.

The Trojans' path to a win runs through an offense that scored at least 25 points in each of its six wins, then produced one touchdown in Madison. Against the conference's elite, that early-season scoring has been harder to repeat.

The market expects Ohio State to win. On this site's board, which tracks 12 venues, Ohio State is favored at -233 on Novig's moneyline, with USC at +223. Novig has the Buckeyes favored by 6.5 points at -111 and USC +6.5 at +108. The best spread price for USC is +7.5 at theScore Bet, priced at -130. Novig sets the total at 51.5, and BetRivers is the best price on the over at 51 (-115). Sportsbook hold runs from 3.4% to 5.8% on the moneyline and from 3.4% to 6.8% on the spread.

Even a close loss might not settle much, given the money involved. A blowout at home, though, would make Riley's case much harder to defend in the final month.