On Saturday, the USC football team defeated Rutgers 42-35 in Piscataway, New Jersey. With the victory, the Trojans improved to 4-0 on the season and opened Big Ten play 1-0.
Despite the Trojans winning, USC fans and media were rather frustrated by the team’s performance, and they made that quite clear on social media. Here are some notable reactions from the game:
One stat says it all
35 allowed to Rutgers.
— USC Trojans Wire (@TrojansWire) September 19, 2026
The emojis speak for themselves
💩 💩 💩 💩 💩 💩💩
— USC Psycho (@uscpsycho) September 19, 2026
Maybe an overreaction?
Final thoughts:
— Gabriel Greenlee (@TheTrojanBlade) September 19, 2026
- I’ve seen enough. I’m done with watching Lincoln Riley coached teams take the field in the cardinal and gold. Same shit, different year. I’ve had enough.
A clear pattern
If this were an outlier, we could easily write off this performance as USC not taking Rutgers seriously/looking ahead to Oregon. The problem is that this isn’t an outlier. We
have seen this same thing over and over on the road under Riley.
— Adam Bradford (@Adam_Bradford14) September 19, 2026
Deja vu
This game is USC circa Alex Grinch era. Defense is going to be saved by turnovers. Pressure on the offense to score on every drive minus Caleb Williams. *rolls sleeves up* let’s do this.
— Trojan Football ✌️ ᶠᵃⁿ (@TrojanFBx) September 19, 2026
It was bad, but not quite that bad
Alex Grinch might be better than Gary Patterson in 2026 man
— LA (@LASPORTSFANATIC) September 19, 2026
Culture issues?
You can hire a defensive mastermind, but you can't take the lack of defense out of the culture set by the offensive head coach ... or something like that
— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) September 19, 2026
The common denominator
At what point, after three different DCs produce the same defense, can we stop blaming DC hires? https://t.co/ObWBfYwfuK
— Alicia de Artola Castillo 🇺🇸🇪🇸 (@PenguinOfTroy) September 19, 2026
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Social media reacts to USC’s ugly 42-35 victory over Rutgers
