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By Matt Audilet
Contributing Sports Writer
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The USC Trojans began their 2025 college football campaign with a 4-0 record, notching victories over Missouri State, Georgia Southern, Purdue and Michigan State to open up the year.
Since that hot start, the Trojans have lost two over their last three games — falling to No. 23 Illinois and No. 13 Notre Dame. Sandwiched between those two losses is a win over the No. 15 Michigan Wolverines.
Coming off Saturday's 34-24 loss against the bitter-rival Fighting Irish, there's been some discussion regarding Lincoln Riley's job security with the historic college football program.
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Riley now has a 31-16 overall record since taking over as the Trojans' head coach before the 2022 season. The former Oklahoma coach is 5-12 against ranked opponents over his time in Southern California.
If USC was to part ways with Riley, his contract buyout would cost the school somewhere between $80 and $90 million.
During a recent episode of the "The Triple Option" podcast, legendary college football coach Urban Meyer said there's "no chance" USC fires Riley.
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Meyer explained that the decision ultimately comes down to the financials. The former Florida/Ohio State head coach described the process USC would need to go through in order to make Riley's firing possible.
"All right, you make a decision. You make a decision, you go back in your office. You have a Rolodex on your phone now; it used to be a Rolodex. Do you start calling the Bs, the billionaires, or the hundreds of millionaires, and say, ‘All right, here we go, I’m going to make a decision. I need a check for $20 (million),'" Meyer said, via On3 Sports.
“Is that? I don’t know this. I’m trying to think, what in the hell do you do? I need $70 million, there’s not a line item on the… you know, there’s budgets. You’ve got revenue and you’ve got expenses, and I think that’s economics 101. When there’s a line item that doesn’t show up and all the sudden it’s got a bunch of zeros behind it, eight figures behind it, is that a phone call to a person? Here’s the phone call, we have to make this change.”
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Multiple top college football programs have already made moves like this in 2025.
James Franklin's contract buyout with Penn State was just under $50 million, and the Florida Gators paid now-former head coach Billy Napier approximately $21 million to part ways with the program.
Riley and the Trojans will look to get their season back on track in a matchup against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday.
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