DT Isaiah Raikes, DB Tre'Quon Fegans no longer listed on USC roster
There's still a week left of spring practice for USC and the NCAA transfer portal doesn't open until April 16, but the dominoes of attrition are already falling for USC.
A day after it was confirmed that freshman offensive lineman Jason Zandamela is transferring out of the program after just a few months on campus, USC discreetly updated its official online roster with two notable omissions.
Defensive tackle Isaiah Raikes, who transferred in during the winter from Texas A&M, and defensive back Tre'Quon Fegans, who transferred in last year from Alabama, are no longer listed on the Trojans' online roster.
Raikes was supposed to provide a much-needed impact on the interior of the defensive line for USC, but it seemed likely that he was looking at rotational role coming off the bench behind either Bear Alexander or Nate Clifton.
Fegans played sparingly last season and was also not expected to win a starting job for the Trojans.
Head coach Lincoln Riley was asked Thursday about having to continually recruit players on his own roster to stay in the program and not transfer.
"Every kid is different in this age. Every set of parents is different -- you understand that. It's just part of what we deal with now," he said. "So I don't get too overly emotional one way or another when we have a guy that's thinking about moving on. This is not going to be the right fit for every single player -- we get that. This is a special place, it's a hard place -- you can't make somebody fit here, and that's OK. That's not a problem. It's just for us on our continuous journey to find the best team and find the right fit and that's what we're going to keep doing. ...
“With the transfer portal, you find yourself having some more big-picture conversations with these guys to discuss what you see in them as a coach, what you see potentially their role being both now and in the future, and at the end of the day, I mean, it’s USC. Like, you’re not going to beg people to be here. It’s just, I mean, for every guy that leaves, there’s going to be a line of 100 people that would die to take that spot in a heartbeat. So, we certainly want to do a good job retaining, and part of that is evaluation, (something) twice, but we understand it’s not going to be 100% all the time. We wish those guys the best, and on to the next.”