LOS ANGELES — The early signing period is still six months away, but a lot of recruiting preparation will take place over the next two months as official and unofficial visits get into full swing.
Next to December, June and July are arguably the most important months on the recruiting calendar, and that's no different for USC, which is in the midst of a crucial 2025 recruiting cycle after signing solid but not elite freshman classes the past two years.
The Trojans are off to a strong start with their 2025 class, ranked No. 4 in the nation according to the 247Sports Composite, featuring two five-star prospects and five players ranked in the top 100. It's the best shape heading into the summer for USC since coach Lincoln Riley's first full cycle at the helm, when top 100 players Zachariah Branch, Malachi Nelson and Makai Lemon had already committed.
While it's great to have a top-five recruiting ranking in May, the real work is just beginning for USC, so here's an overview of key summer recruiting activities for the Trojans.
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What is the significance of this recruiting cycle for USC?
Looking at the roster as a whole, USC is probably more talented than it was in Riley's first season, but not dramatically more talented than it will be in 2022. Riley said 2022 will probably be the most talented team he has had under his belt with the Trojans.
It's safe to assume that when Riley was hired, most USC fans expected the team to have better, more high-profile talent at this point, but heading into Riley's third year, the Trojans don't have the best players at any position except receiver.
As they move into the new environment of the Big Ten, the program will need more high-level talent, and there are a few reasons why USC's recruiting has lagged over the past few cycles: The Trojans haven't had the most unified structure in terms of name, image and likeness, and the players didn't have much confidence in former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch (and Riley kept Grinch in place after the disastrous end to the 2022 season), so USC has had a big challenge recruiting players on the defensive side of the ball.
USC now has a new defensive staff in place with new athletic director Jen Cohen at the helm who is more in tune with NIL and has also changed NIL's policies regarding engagement with high school prospects.
With these changes, we’ll see if the Trojans can land an elite class this cycle.
How should USC fans feel about their class now?
Good…for now, at least. As mentioned earlier, this class has two 5-star prospects and five top 100 players, which is a good thing.
But the concern is that four of the five five-star players (defensive lineman Justus Terry and quarterback Julian Lewis) and the top 100 commits are from out of state. It's hard to keep those players committed long-term, and all of the top 100 players have been committed since at least April. Lewis committed last summer.
We've already seen Lewis in action — he's scheduled to visit Auburn, Colorado and Indiana in the coming weeks — as high-profile teams continue to pursue Lewis and fellow Georgia alum Terry and four-star defensive lineman Isaiah Gibson and four-star safety Hilton Stubbs from Florida.
USC needs to have a good season to showcase their upward trend, especially after a debacle in 2023. If things get tough on the field, that will likely affect their recruiting efforts.
🏈2025 5🌟Countdown🏈
In sixth place is Justus Terry, who plans to attend USC.translator)
“Terry isn't one of those giant defensive tackles who just takes up space and swallows running backs at the line of scrimmage. He's a standout player from Manchester, Georgia, and he's a… pic.twitter.com/n11PPomt1d
— Rivals (@Rivals) May 28, 2024
What is your outlook on the new defensive staff as a recruiter?
The jury is still out on them, and early results are positive: USC has top 100 commitments at each level of the defense.
As expected, the early standout is defensive line coach Eric Henderson, who joined the program in January after spending five seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, where he won a Super Bowl and coached future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald. Henderson's background and pedigree should have given him a vision to sell on the recruiting side, which came true with the commitments of Terry and Gibson. This is Henderson's first full Power 4 recruiting cycle, and while he has embraced everything that comes with recruiting, it will be interesting to see how he closes out this cycle.
There's still a lot to learn about coordinator Danton Lin, linebackers coach Matt Entz and secondary coach Doug Berg. This will be Lin's second year working in college football; he was at UCLA before that, where Chip Kelly didn't put much emphasis on recruiting high school players.
Entz was previously the head coach at North Dakota State, which has a different type of recruiting profile than USC, while Belk began his career under Nick Saban at Alabama but is now in a much different recruiting situation after recently coaching at Houston, which was in the Big 12 and AAC.
So many questions still remain and this cycle should provide some early indicators.
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Are other assistants also coming under scrutiny during this hiring cycle?
Riley said in the spring that he and offensive line coach Josh Henson need to coach the position group better, and the team also needs to recruit its offensive linemen better.
There were some solid wins this spring, including the signing of four-star recruit Elijah Paige, who is expected to be the Trojans' starting left tackle, but the Trojans have missed out on several quality offensive line recruits over the past few cycles.
One of the few players they signed, 2024 four-star center and top-150 prospect Jason Zandamera, transferred just a few months after joining the program in March.
USC is in a tough position because USC hasn't produced a ton of quality offensive linemen recently, but even though they had some highly-rated OL prospects last cycle, the staff didn't pursue them as hard, which has forced them to travel out of state more often and makes those battles more difficult to win.
Northern California has some solid offensive line prospects this season, and USC is looking to land one of them, including four-stars Jackson Lloyd and Champ Taulea.
The Trojans need to improve the talent level on their offensive line, so the onus is on Henson (and Riley) to accomplish that in this recruiting cycle.
How is the local recruitment process?
It's a topic that has infuriated fans, as Riley has taken a national approach to recruiting during his tenure and has declared Southern California a priority, though it hasn't been as prioritized as previous coaching staffs at USC.
The Trojans have just one of the top 25 prospects in the state signed this season, the same number as UCLA and one less than Oregon and Texas A&M, both of which have two of the top 25 prospects in the state signed, and USC also recently lost the state's top player, five-star cornerback DeJon Lee, out of the top four.
The Trojans' 2025 class currently consists of 12 players, with only two from California, meaning USC will need to continue the strong national recruiting push it implemented earlier this cycle to make up for the talent it can't get locally.
What kind of prospects are worth focusing on?
While USC has more pressing needs at other positions, quarterback will always be a focal point of its freshman recruiting, so it's worth keeping an eye on whether Lewis' commitment holds up. If it does, USC could recruit other players to join him in the class. If it doesn't, the staff will have to come up with a pivot plan at the quarterback position, a position that doesn't have many young players.
The Trojans haven't landed a ton of quality defensive linemen from the SEC region in recent years, so Terry and Gibson will be worth keeping an eye on as the team continues to make a push to acquire them.
Southern California is having a strong cycle at linebacker, a key position for USC. The Trojans have secured the commitment of four-star linebacker Matai Tagoai from San Clemente (Calif.), but local linebacker prospects Noah Mikhail and Madden Faraimo are still unsigned. Mikhail and Faraimo are both top-100 players.
🤞🏽 https://t.co/LIo0iweS6f
— Matai William Koze Tagoai (@MataiTagoai_) May 16, 2024
What about NIL?
There's always been angst among USC fans about NILs and high school player acquisitions. In previous cycles, USC-affiliated institutions didn't offer NIL contracts to players until they enrolled in classes. Other programs were more aggressive in offering NILs.
This created frustration for Troy fans, who blamed NIL and did so again when USC lost a high-profile recruiting competition.
That may well be true, but it also gives the coaching staff a license that perhaps has not yet been justified.
Was USC's NIL situation perfect? No. Has the staff recruited with national championship-like enthusiasm? No.
Look, USC isn't poor. Athletic As reported in March, House of Victory's NIL budget for football is three times the size it was a year ago, which will help, but the program can help itself in other ways too.
None of the Trojans' assistant coaches were there at St. John Bosco's college showcase two weeks ago. Is there a reason USC has one? Probably. St. John Bosco doesn't have a ton of promising recruits in the 2025 cycle, but with questions already being asked about the Trojans' local recruiting, it might be worth a stop — especially with a high school program that produces some of the top talent in the state.
BYU had five or six assistants, UCLA sent coordinators Eric Bieniemy and Ikaika Marleau, Arizona had three assistants, Oregon didn't have any assistants either, but there's no question about the Ducks' recruiting efforts.
Riley is a good recruiter of quarterbacks and skill personnel, tight ends coach Zach Hanson is doing a good job recruiting at his position and Henderson has shown good signs so far, but the staff isn't full of great recruiters from top to bottom.
USC has work to do on all fronts, and we should see a lot about those efforts this cycle.
(Lincoln Riley photo by Darren Yamashita/USA Today)
