The opening weekend of the 2024 college football season will feature several marquee matchups, but one of them almost didn’t happen.
LSU and USC will open the season on September 1 in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium in perhaps the biggest matchup of the opening weekend. The game will be played on a Sunday and have the eyes of the entire college football world on it, but according to reports USC head coach Lincoln Riley didn’t want to play the game.
According to Saturday Down South, Riley and USC have tried for the last two years to get out of the week one matchup. USC was still trying to get out of the game last fall and offered the Tigers different opponents to face.
Tiger Rag reached out to USC Senior Associate AD Cody Worsham, but a message was not returned as of yet.
Fox Sports reportedly got involved at one point in an attempt to keep USC’s first game as a member of the Big Ten from being broadcast on a rival network. The attempts to get out of the game were not successful and LSU head coach Brian Kelly would not be convinced to cancel.
Both teams will reportedly earn $5 million from the game in Las Vegas.
Riley was rumored to be the favorite to take over for head coach of LSU in 2021. He said he wouldn’t leave Oklahoma for LSU after the Sooners loss to Oklahoma state. Shortly afterwards, he accepted the job at USC. LSU settled on Kelly as its next head coach after missing out on Riley.
USC will be playing a full slate of Big Ten opponents as well as an out of conference game with Notre Dame in addition to the one with LSU. The Tigers will have matchups with UCLA and USC as well as its eight-game SEC schedule.
LSU and USC will kick off at 6:30 p.m.
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