{"id":97495,"date":"2026-07-28T17:31:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T00:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=97495"},"modified":"2026-07-28T19:11:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T02:11:58","slug":"usc-2026-football-schedule-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=97495","title":{"rendered":"USC 2026 Football Schedule\/ Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"474\" height=\"355\" src=\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/usc-logo.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-88684\" srcset=\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/usc-logo.jpg 474w, http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/usc-logo-400x300.jpg 400w, http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/usc-logo-70x52.jpg 70w, http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/usc-logo-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By Tim Peterson <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Big Ten had the opening day of Football Media Days Tuesday in Chicago. USC head coach Lincoln Riley spoke about the Trojans outlook for the 2026 season. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n\n\n<p>There are high expectations for the Trojans this year. USC has one of the best recruiting classes in the nation and have added several new coaching additions including defensive coordinator Gary Patterson. USC&#8217;s ultimate goal is to qualify for its first berth in the College Football playoff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although Riley likes his recruiting class he is also counting on key returning starters. Jayden Maiava returns at quarterback for his second straight season as the full-time starting quarterback. He played the final four games of the 2024 season before playing the full season last year. Maiava completed 265 of 403 passes for 3,711 yards and 24 touchdowns in &#8217;25 and had the nation&#8217;s top QB Rating (91.2) He does show a need for improvement in the turnover department as he threw 10 picks last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Trojans also have both of their running backs returning in King Miller and Waymond Jordan. Miller led the way with 972 yards and eight touchdowns last year averaging over six yards per carry. Jordan had 576 yards and five scores before going down with an injury after five games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Riley also mentioned that he and the team want to play the Notre Dame game in the future but some things still need to be worked out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>USC 2026 Football Schedule  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>8\/29 San Jose St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>9\/4 Fresno St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>9\/12 Louisiana <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>9\/19 at Rutgers <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>9\/26 Oregon <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>10\/3 Washington <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>10\/10 at Penn St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>10\/24 at Wisconsin <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>10\/31 Ohio St. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>11\/14 at Indiana <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>11\/21 Maryland <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>11\/28 at UCLA  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Tim Peterson The Big Ten had the opening day of Football Media Days Tuesday in Chicago. USC head coach Lincoln Riley spoke about the Trojans outlook for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[871],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97504,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97495\/revisions\/97504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}