Incredibly disrespectful preseason take against USC can be dismissed out of hand

Granted, it is being framed as a bold take, but The Athletic's staff has gone out of its way to disrespect USC in its preseason predictions. Pete Sampson is somehow of the belief that a three-game skid with losses to Illinois, Michigan State, and Notre Dame will result in the Trojan HC being fired.

Forget that the financial aspect of coach Riley's contract would need to see USC have a particularly bad year to consider paying the money for the buyout; Sampson's reasoning fails to meet basic logic.

Part of his reasoning is that the current team is not at the same talent level when compared to the days of coach Pete Carroll. That is obvious. Look around college football. With the way talent is dispersed across multiple teams, there is not anyone that can match those national championship-winning teams of Troy.

When looking at it from that vantage point, if taking Sampson's reasoning at face value, there is not anyone who will have the potential to have a good year. Using those prior coach Carroll teams as the needed metric is beyond silly.

Eric Single goes on to then outdo his writing counterpart. He is of the belief that Georgia Southern will cause the upset at the Coliseum on September 6.

Odd USC opinion

Speaking of talent levels, there is not a chance that the Trojans will lose to the Eagles. Certainly anything can happen with an 'on any given Sunday' type of mentality. While other fan bases would relish the sight of seeing coach Clay Helton exacting revenge on the Trojans upon his return, the better question should ask what the margin of victory will be for USC.

What this shows once again is how comfortable others are to throw anything at the wall regarding USC to see if it will stick. Always on the forefront of the minds of others, the Trojans have a lot of rent-free property throughout college football.