Josh Pate talks polarizing preseason USC Trojans

The USC Trojans have mostly remained off the national college football radar this offseason. There have been the lookaheads to the 2026 NFL Drafts that have seen wide receivers Ja’Kobi Lane and Makai Lemon highlighted. And there’s been the odd Paul Finebaum rant about this needing to be the end of the line for head coach Lincoln Riley. But the Trojans will now officially start the season outside of the Top 25 in both polls and ESPN says they are a 10th-tier team without one of the 40 most important players in the country on the roster.

One of the country’s most significant college football voices put USC in his crosshairs recently as Josh Pate gave his preseason thoughts on the Trojans.

Pate was open at the top about how difficult it’s been to wrap his head around what to expect from the Trojans this season.

“USC’s team preview is something I have struggled with,” Pate said. “I’ve put it off. I’ve avoided it. Because I’ve been really, really back-and-forth about what I expect from them this year.”

Pate echoed the thoughts we’ve shared at USC. Externally, this is seen as a team that struggled to win games last season, has a coach edging closer to the hot seat and has seen its win total shrink three years in a row. Internally, there is a ton of confidence “within the walls” at USC about what they’ve built on defense and what is coming back on offense.

Pate’s Three Questions About USC

Pate has three questions for the USC Trojans heading into the season.

1) What are they really made of? Have they Big Ten-proofed themselves?

“I watched them last year and they didn’t feel like an operation that was built to win in the Big Ten…Their offensive line couldn’t close games…Can you close out games?”

2) Could they win a game defensively if they need to?

“If they’re in a game early in the year and offense ain’t clicking yet, could they win a game that’s played in the low-to-mid-20s? Historically, no. Maybe things have changed.”

3) What if it’s just a bunch of one-possession games again?

“If the compitetive character of your program is such that you don’t know how to win games, that doesn’t always change over the course of January to August. So something fundamental has to have changed.”

Best Position Group

“I think their best position group’s their wide receiver group,” Pate said. “I think Ja’Kobi Lane can be one of the best wide receivers in the country…Makai Lemon can be that. They lost some guys in the portal and yet I still think it really profiles as a great wide receiver room, a dynamic wide receiver room.

USC’s Breakout Player

“The breakout player has to be the quarterback here,” Pate said. “Jayden Maiava has to be the breakout player…A Lincoln Riley offense requires a lot of leverage on that quarterback position. You can’t hide the quarterback position in this system…You don’t win in spite of the quarterback position with Lincoln Riley. They’ve got to lean on him.”

Lynchpin Game

Like many others, Pate pointed to USC’s trip to Illinois as the make-or-break game “the season hinges on” for the Trojans.

Pate would see the Trojans head there at 4-0 and a win would push them to 5-0 heading into two critical games against Michigan and Notre Dame.

“There is also the flip side of that coin where they go in, get their mouth bloodied and they can’t answer and they lose 17-12,” Pate said. “And then it starts to go downhill and the tires get wobbly again. I think the Illinois game is going to tell you a whole lot to maybe everything you need to know about USC this year.”

Wrap up

“I’ve got a lot of questions about them still,” Pate said. “There are a lot of worlds where they can win 10-plus this year. Just telling you. USC hasn’t fallen off that bad.”

Pate’s Model

Best-case scenario – 11-1
Worst-case scenario – 5-7
Most-likely scenario – 8-4

“My suspicion is I’ll be higher with my own prediction about them than the model is, but I do understand the model’s thinking there,” Pate said. “The model hasn’t always loved USC. The model has to see it to believe it.”