USC Football Recruiting: Thoughts on Trojans' Setbacks, Strategy After Decommitments

LOS ANGELES USC made quite a bit of news in June, one of the busiest times on the recruiting calendar. Let's think about the Trojans 2025 recruiting class, where things stand and what it all means.

Please note: All rankings are based on the 247Sports Composite.

1. USC's class of 2025 is leaving June in worse shape than when they started the month.

There is no discussion about that. The Trojans received commitments from two four-stars: edge rusher Hayden Lowe of Oaks Christian (Westlake Village, Calif.) and corner Shamar Arnoux of Carrollton (Ga.). Those additions shouldn't be overlooked, but they don't negate what the USC class has lost lately.

It started last week when four-star Isaiah Gibson and five-star Justus Terry, two top-50 defensive line prospects coming out of the state of Georgia, decommitted on back-to-back days. And on Thursday night, four-star safety Hylton Stubbs, a top-100 prospect nationally, also decommitted.

That's the blueprint for how a class that was in the top five nationally at the start of June falls all the way to 31st in the span of about 10 days.

The importance of the 2025 cycle for USC is evident as Lincoln Riley enters his third season as Trojans coach and is in his third full recruiting cycle. He has upgraded USC's roster from what he inherited, but the program still needs an injection of top talent to compete for Big Ten titles and College Football Playoff appearances on a consistent basis.

The Trojans are not recruiting at an elite level, and haven't been since the first few months of Riley's tenure. The landing commitments of Terry, Gibson and Stubbs in March gave the fanbase hope that this would be a truly elite class. So if the program faces these setbacks, it will only create more questions and anxiety about USC's recruitment, name, image and likeness and everything else involved in the operation, a topic that has already caused much anxiety among the program's supporters.

2. Terry and Gibson's releases weren't all that surprising.

When has USC ever landed multiple high-caliber defensive linemen from the Southeast in the same class? And on top of that, the Trojans were competing against an in-state program in Georgia that has a stellar track record of producing NFL defensive linemen, plays elite defense and is a constant presence in the national championship picture.

Gibson has committed to Georgia this week, and the Bulldogs and several other programs are heavily pursuing Terry. High-profile programs will also be involved with Stubbs.

That puts USC’s recruiting strategy under scrutiny. Riley wants the Trojans to become a national recruiting organization, which sounds good in theory, but whether it’s been worth it is questionable.

Riley had a great freshman season at USC, but followed that up with a hugely disappointing sophomore campaign that made it clear he's still trying to rebuild. It's hard to win national recruiting battles against some sports powers if your program isn't fully established yet. USC should probably blow prospects away with NIL, and while strides have been made, the program has never been super aggressive about using that as a tool for high school prospects. The coaching staff does not have the reputation of being made up of ruthless recruiters like Georgia, Oregon, Miami and others.

The Trojans are falling short in many of these high-profile recruiting battles.

There have been good standalone wins too, like that of Kameryn Fountain, who was a four-star defenseman and a top 10 prospect in Georgia during the 2024 cycle, but USC usually ends up with the top prospects from the states it has a lot of resources in spends.

The Trojans recruited heavily in Texas during the 2023 recruiting cycle and landed only two of the state's top 50 prospects (Braylan Shelby and Quinten Joyner). Shelby was the No. 16 overall player in the state and Joyner was No. 33. It's hard to get recruits from there when programs like Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma really want them.

USC has signed four-star forward Jason Zandamela, a notable recruiting addition out of Florida State, but he played with the program for three months this spring before heading to Florida.

The Trojans have had more success bringing in top prospects from states like Connecticut (four-star LB Elijah Newby) and Minnesota (four-star DL Jide Abasiri) or elsewhere (four-star LB Desman Stephens II of Michigan), places that aren't necessarily hotbeds of talent. and generally do not produce the same caliber of elite players as Florida, Georgia and Texas.

3. So USC doesn't recruit nationally at the highest level, and while it hasn't completely alienated Southern California, it hasn't emphasized its backyard like previous coaching staffs.

There were 36 blue chip recruits in California last cycle, and USC signed just four. There are 34 promising prospects in California this cycle, and USC has commitments from two of them. Meanwhile, Texas A&M could have commitments from three of the state's top five players by the end of the weekend.

Five-star corner Dijon Lee, the top-rated player in California, will announce his college decision Friday and the Trojans are not finalists. Four-star top-100 linebacker Noah Mikhail, another local product, will announce his decision on Sunday. USC is a finalist, but 247Sports national recruiting editor Brandon Huffman I just registered a crystal ball in favor of the Aggies.

If USC can't seem to recruit the best players nationally or locally, you have to wonder what programs are recruiting identity.

4. Riley wants to follow something similar to the model Michigan used to win the national championship: recruit and develop with elite coaching.

However, recent history has not been kind to the development of Riley's recruiting classes. The AthleticsMax Olson reshuffles recruiting classes after four years.

Oklahoma’s 2020 class was ranked 12th but fell out of the top 25 in the reranking. The Sooners’ 2019 class was ranked sixth and fell out of the top 25 in that year’s reranking. Their 2018 class was ranked ninth but also fell out of the top 25 when reranked. Those were Riley’s first three recruiting classes at Oklahoma.

USC's coach must reverse the trend. You could point out that Riley's defensive staff is sub-par, which is true, but he also bears the responsibility for hiring. The Trojans' current defensive staff is probably the best Riley has had since becoming head coach in 2017.

If USC wants to improve its recruiting and development, it's the new defensive staff members that will likely play a big role. They torched the recruiting trail in March, but after this wave of decommitments, they'll need to show big improvements this fall to add more credibility to their pitch.

5. USC's offensive line recruiting needs to improve.

The West Coast doesn't produce many top-tier offensive linemen, but there were two in Northern California this cycle in Jackson Lloyd and Champ Taulealea.

Lloyd committed to Alabama last week, and Taulealea committed to Washington earlier this month. Those were two tough losses.

Offensive line coach Josh Henson can bounce back by signing four-star offensive lineman Carde Smith from Williamson (Mobile, Alabama), who recently visited USC and decommitted from Auburn last week.

As much as there is talk about the Trojans needing more talent on defense, they also need more high-caliber players on offense.

6. It appears that five-star quarterback Julian Juju Lewis will remain part of the draft.

Lewis has visited Indiana, Auburn and Colorado, but is still committed to USC. The Trojans’ most recent commit, Arnoux, is Lewis’ high school teammate in Carrollton (Ga.), so that should help their efforts. But watch for any developments on the Lewis front.

7. Will there be any more obligations?

Riley typically tweets an emoji when USC receives a commitment. He tweeted six of those emojis during the month of June, but there were only two public commits, for Trojans Lowe and Arnoux.

This means that there are still four potential commitments that have not been processed. There may be additions for this class.

8. USCs class features seven three-star to four blue-chip prospects.

We're not shaming the three-star prospects; many of them are proving to be good players, but USC needs more top talent on the roster and in this recruiting class.

The No. 406 player nationally is the final four-star prospect in the Composite rankings. USC has three prospects ranked between Nos. 410 and 430 nationally, so it's not inconceivable that these commitments could make a leap and turn into blue-chippers, which would boost the Trojans' rankings.

But it is clear that more work needs to be done by the staff in various aspects.

(Photo of USC coach Lincoln Riley: Jason Parkhurst/USA Today)