Lincoln Riley confirms who will be playing for USC in Alamo Bowl

Following Monday afternoon’s practice at Howard Jones Field, USC coach Lincoln Riley spoke to the media for the first time since the Trojans’ victory over crosstown rival UCLA on Nov. 29.

USC (9-3), ranked No. 16 in the AP poll, prepares to face Texas Christian (9-4) on Dec. 30 at the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. USC finished 7-2 in its second season in the Big Ten and won four of its last five games, with the only loss during that stretch being a 42-27 loss to Oregon, which is the No. 5 seed in the College Football Playoff.

Riley announced that safety Kamari Ramsey, receivers Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane, tight end Lake McRee and linebacker Eric Gentry will not play in the Alamo Bowl. Lane declared for the NFL Draft on Monday.

“Anthony Lucas and Bishop Fitzgerald want to play in the game but are dealing with injuries and trying to come back…we’ll see how that goes,” Riley said. “Kilian O’Connor, Elijah Paige and Jahkeem Stewart have all had surgery and will be ready to ride.”

When asked about signing the No. 1 recruiting class for 2026, Riley said: “It was a great day. We tried to stay focused on building next year’s team. The number of guys we signed is a big part of that and as we start to look ahead… half of our day and maybe even more is focused on next year and the years to come. In the meantime, we’re obviously preparing for that game of bowling. It was a lot of hard work to add talent and people who care about this place and start putting the next ones together. This year’s team has been exciting here the last few weeks.

Riley is 35-27 in his four seasons at USC and hopes to improve his bowling record to 3-1. He guided the Trojans to victories in the 2023 Holiday Bowl and the 2024 Las Vegas Bowl.

Riley watched the CIF State Open Division bowl game between Santa Margarita (coached by former Trojans quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer) and De La Salle on Saturday and was impressed by the performance of USC commit Trent Mosley, who had 11 catches for 183 yards and two touchdowns and a rushing touchdown in the Eagles’ 47-13 victory.

“He’s someone we targeted early on,” Riley said. “I thought he was super impressive and that was big. He’s one of the best receivers in the country. He proved it and he played crazy. He’s a big family and he’s a really smart kid.”

Asked what advice he gives to players deciding what to do next in their careers, Riley said: “Yeah, it’s a big decision. Guys who make the right decision, no matter what it is, have a head start on the rest of their lives. So one bad decision can be catastrophic. That’s the world we all live in. I just try to educate them on their options. I don’t like telling guys you should do this or shouldn’t do that. He It’s more like, here’s “This option, here’s what it would look like, here’s what you need to consider. Sometimes the decision is pretty clear one way or another, other times it’s not. I try to give them as much advice as possible.”

Given that USC will be missing a number of players who were key contributors throughout the season, Riley isn’t ruling out the possibility of younger players getting in on the action against TCU.

“There will be guys everywhere that get opportunities,” Riley said. “All sides of the ball, all position groups, these are maybe some of the guys that you’ve seen a little bit during the season and in some cases you’ll see some guys burn out in this game that haven’t played at all or very little. Bowl games are great, but days like this are the most valuable part because we’re just pouring reps into all these guys, it’s super competitive and the energy level is just different. All these guys feel it’s their time.”

Riley admitted that he and his team have had to make some tough decisions based on incoming freshmen, the majority of whom are spring enrollees.

“It’s huge, it’s a very high number of people that will be here and it’s important,” he said. “We’ve had to make a number of decisions over the last few weeks. We have a large number of players who have already signed and some of the decisions we had to make were based on knowing what we had coming up, and when you sign as many as we do, you’re going to have some tough decisions to make.”