USC football was able to quell a larger storm, but the rain is still coming down.

The Trojans lost two defensive players — graduate defensive lineman Isaiah Raikes and redshirt sophomore cornerback Tre’Quon Fegans — to the transfer portal last week. While Fegans’ loss is alarming, Raikes is the much more concerning loss for USC.

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Raikes had spent less than a semester with the Trojans, transferring from Texas A&M to help transform a USC defensive line that ranked 116th in rushing defense and 51st in team sacks during the 2023 season. The Trojans now only have seven defensive linemen remaining on the roster, only two of whom recorded more than six tackles at the collegiate level last season.

USC is preparing to head into the Big Ten — one of the two toughest football conferences in the country — this coming season, and if the Trojans field their current team, it could be a dire situation. The Trojans’ new conference is known for its strength against the rush, as the four teams in the Big Ten who made the final Associated Press Top 25 College Football poll of the 2023 season had a top-30 rushing defense.

With a relatively inexperienced interior defensive front, the Trojans will have a tough road ahead of them. USC did bring in a strong defensive staff to revamp the unit — headlined by defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn and defensive line coach Eric Henderson — but the staff can only do so much with the players it has at its disposal.  

“It’s USC. You’re not going to beg people to be here,” said Head Coach Lincoln Riley after Thursday’s practice. “For every guy that leaves here, there’s going to be a line of 100 people that would die to take that spot.”

But the Trojans don’t have 100 high-level defensive linemen knocking at the door. There are reasons why Raikes wanted to jump ship. 

Luckily, USC did manage to keep junior defensive lineman Bear Alexander amid major speculation that he was entering the transfer portal, but one star player is not necessarily enough to turn the tide for USC. Former Trojan defensive lineman Tuli Tuipulotu and his 13.5 sacks in 2022 on the 94th-ranked scoring defense are evidence enough of that.

Raikes was not the most productive player with the Aggies last season — only totaling 17 tackles — but his departure begs the question of why he left after less than a semester at the school. It was not as if he was going to have limited playing time given the youth that dominates the defensive line room.

There are many factors that go into a transfer decision, but this one leaves USC in a precarious position heading into the Big Ten. Riley, Lynn and Henderson still have time to pick up a big-time defensive lineman out of the portal, but that was originally supposed to be Raikes.

This is not to say the defensive front is not set up for success in the future with Henderson and Lynn at the helm. The Trojans currently have two top-60 defensive linemen — Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson — in their 2025 recruiting class, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, but those two won’t be on campus for the upcoming season.

USC needs to play strong defense if it hopes to even sign Terry and Gibson. If the Trojans play defense as they have in each of the last two seasons under former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, there is little chance the two verbal commitments put their pens to paper when National Signing Day comes around.

USC football had all the momentum in the world prior to last week. The Trojans brought in an elite defensive staff to replace Grinch, they currently hold 247Sports’ No. 4 recruiting class for the 2025 cycle and former USC quarterback Caleb Williams is the presumptive No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft.

But momentum ebbs and flows in college football, and the Trojans need a momentum shift back in their favor. The spring transfer portal window is officially open as of Tuesday, and USC was always going to lose players when the window opened. That’s just how college football works these days. How the Trojans respond with portal pickups of their own, though, will be very indicative of how next season will go in Riley’s third year at the wheel.

The Big Ten is waiting for USC, and the conference will get a taste of its future member school this weekend; the Trojans will partake in their annual spring game this Saturday at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC has not yet released details about the format of the game, but the event will commence at noon, and all eyes will be on the new version of the Trojan defense.

Thomas Johnson is a junior writing about USC’s move to a new conference and all of the implications surrounding the transition in his column, “Big Ten Bites,” which runs every other Tuesday.