USC Football Already Becoming Popular National Title Bet

Lincoln Riley has changed everything at USC, and he hasn't even coached a regular-season game yet.

Over at the SuperBook at Westgate Las Vegas, more money has been bet on USC to win the College Football Playoff than any other team.

That's a big turnaround after the years of underachieving and letdowns this program has seen, including just three conference wins last year and just four overall. Now the Trojans are back in the national spotlight and the championship discussion among bettors as well.

"They're our biggest loser in the futures book," Ed Salmons, veteran oddsmaker for the SuperBook at Westgate Las Vegas, told ESPN.

No Time To Waste

Clearly the whole "rebuild" thing isn't on the minds of a lot of the betting public right now when it comes to Riley's program.

USC's national title odds have improved from 40-to-1 to now 25-to-1 at the SuperBook, giving the Trojans the sixth-best championship odds. Over at FanDuel, they're 20-to-1, fifth-shortest, while BetMGM has them with the fourth-shortest odds, also at +2000.

It's clear once Riley came to town, so did instant inflated expectations.

USC enters 2022 as the favorites to win the Pac-12 as well (+150 FanDuel, +200 BetMGM) with a win total of 9.5, which would be more than double what they won last season, so, yeah, it's clear Riley isn't being given much of an adjustment period with his new program.

Not Impossible

That all being said, these expectations are more than reasonable given his resume, and the aggressive offseason on the free-agent mar...sorry, I mean the transfer portal for the Trojans.

Riley has been to a New Year's Six Bowl or the College Football Playoff every year he's been a head coach in his career, with the exception of this past season, where he ended up with an Alamo Bowl invite. Still, the Sooners finished 10th in the AP poll last season.

Then there's the talent that followed him to Los Angeles, with five-star transfers Caleb Williams, who has the third-best odds to win the Heisman, and Biletnikoff Award winner Jordan Addison to now throw to.

There's also five more four-star transfers in Eric Gentry, Mario Williams, Latrell McCutchin, Travis Dye, and Brenden Rice that Riley convinced to join him in Southern California (hard pitch, I'm sure), and you're looking at essentially a brand new program heading into 2022.

Of course, USC isn't as deep as Alabama or Georgia, but that will likely come quickly with Riley now recruiting. USC is once again a legit powerhouse that not only can live up to these maxed-out expectations, but more than likely will, and there's no turning back after that.

Whether or not that leads to a national title for Riley and Co. in Year 1 remains to be seen, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility either.