During his appearance at Big Ten Media Days, USC head coach Lincoln Riley addressed the possibility of ending the annual rivalry game with Notre Dame football. As has been the case every other time he's discsused the matter, Riley said a whole lot of nothing.
Unfortunately, if there was meaning to take away from his comments, -including those that tied the life of the rivalry to the Big 10 getting more automatic qualifiers into the College Football playoffs - it doesn't appear he's interested in fighting very hard to keep the game alive.
Lincoln Riley ties USC-Notre Dame rivalry future to Big Ten playoff qualification talks
"I mean, do I want to play the game?" Riley said when asked about his school's rivalry with the Notre Dame football program. "Absolutely. It's one of the reasons I came here. But also my allegiance and my loyalty is not to Notre Dame and it's not to anybody else."
After explaining his allegiance was to USC and that he was going to push whatever was best for his school, he underlined that should the College Football Playoffs format go the 16-team, 4-4-2-2-1 model. This model would allow 4 teams from the Big Ten into the playoffs every year.
As Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti laid out earlier in the week, such a model would allow a USC that went 6-3 in conference into the playoffs. And both Petitti and now Riley claim such a change would allow B1G teams to schedule more formidable non-conference opponents.
Riley also echoed earlier complaints from Penn State head coach James Franklin that Notre Dame is in a better situation because they're not affiliated with a football conference.
"So I'm very hopeful we can get to a point where it makes sense. It's one of those situations where the two schools are in radically different situations. I think we can all agree with that, with one having a conference affiliation and one not."
The entirety of the speech didn't solve anything, but certainly didn't sprout much optimism that Notre Dame football's game against USC will continue past 2027.