USC got the win it needed in its season opener, beating San Jose State 42-26 in Week 0. But the louder story coming out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum had nothing to do with the scoreboard.
It was the crowd.
ESPN reported attendance at 51,144, a number that sits well below the stadium’s 77,500 capacity. The eye test told a harsher story, with multiple stretches of the Coliseum looking thin and, in spots, nearly barren. Social media noticed immediately, and the jokes came fast.
Some tried to explain away the empty seats, but that only added to the conversation around USC’s home opener. Others pointed out that the scene looked more like a spring game than a regular-season kickoff. One commenter even said USC had more fans than 694… a line meant as a punchline, but one that captured the mood around the reported turnout.
The optics were especially rough because this wasn’t coming from a struggling program scraping through a bad season. USC has had better days, sure, but the Trojans still brought a name brand and a fresh start into the new year. Instead, the opener became a reminder of how much the program’s recent trajectory has cooled.
That’s where the Notre Dame angle starts to creep in. If USC had opted into the 2026 game against Notre Dame, it very well could have happened during Week 0. Instead, the Trojans were facing San Jose State, and the attention shifted to the half-empty stands rather than the matchup itself.
The broader criticism online wasn’t just about one afternoon in Los Angeles. It was about recent history.
USC’s last conference championship came in 2017, and the program’s last national title was in 2004. That’s a long enough gap for people to start asking uncomfortable questions, even if the comparison to a program like North Dakota State wasn’t really a fair one.
One side wins consistently and draws fans because of it. The other, not so much.
There was also a sharper line of thought floating around social media: whether USC has slipped into “has been” territory. That idea ran headfirst into the fact that plenty of respected programs have endured long title droughts without being written off.
Notre Dame’s drought is longer. Michigan won it three seasons ago.
Nebraska’s last came in 1997. The source of the debate wasn’t whether USC is finished - it was that the empty seats made the whole conversation easier to have.
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