It wasn't noted on the official depth chart release USC put on Thursday evening, but head coach Lincoln Riley revealed on Friday that Michael Lantz has been named the starting kicker for field goals, extra points and kickoffs.

Lantz joined USC this year as a transfer from Georgia Southern, where he was one of the most productive kickers in college football last season while successfully converting 23 of 28 field goals last season, 45 of 45 extra point attempts and delivering 43 touchbacks on 61 kickoffs (with 2 out of bounds) for the Eagles.

He ranked 10th nationally with his 82.1 percent conversion rate among those with at least 25 field goal attempts.

Lantz beat out incumbent starting kicker Denis Lynch and others for the job.

"Lantz will start off for us. He'll be the field goal kicker and also handle the kickoffs. It's been a really good competition, one that will continue to be ongoing throughout the year," Riley said. "We've got some unique skill sets in there with Lantz, with Denis, with Eddie [Czpalicki], a couple of these young guys that have come along and done some really nice things. We've got some really talented young kickers in the program, but Mike will get the start on Sunday."

Lynch served as USC's primary kicker each of the last two seasons. He finished 10 of 14 on field goals and 65 of 66 on extra point attempts for the Trojans while producing just 13 touchbacks in 60 kickoffs and also sending three kicks out of bounds.

Czaplicki, who is USC's starting punter, also handled 30 kickoffs with 14 touchbacks (and one out of bounds), and Tyler Robles had 3 kickoff attempts with 0 touchbacks.

Riley was blunt in his criticism of the kicking game when addressing it earlier this month.

“Yeah, just, we didn’t perform well enough. I mean, just simple as that," he said. "We missed some kicks that we need to make, we were not good in the kickoff department. I mean, honestly, our 10 guys on the kickoff team last year did a hell of a job, considering how few of touchbacks we had. And so, yeah, neither one was good enough to play at the level that we expect to play. And so we brought in some competition."

Lantz's breakthrough last year was a long time coming for the kicker, who started his college career at Minnesota in 2019 (going 8 of 11 on field goals) before redshirting the next season and missing 2021 due to injury. He transferred back to his home state in landing at Georgia Southern, serving as the Eagles' kickoff specialist in 2022 (while going 0 for 2 on field goals, both of 50-plus yards) before his big 2023 season.

Lantz could have stayed at Georgia Southern, where he'd already established himself as the starter, but he instead entered the transfer portal and knew fairly quickly where he wanted to go.

Lantz noted that after hearing from USC special teams coordinator Ryan Dougherty that he didn't need to hear much more. He set a "do not contact" status within the transfer portal and honed in on the Trojans.

"I think, honestly, it's almost intuitive -- it's USC. There's not really many other places like this, so it was a very easy decision for my wife and I to move out here," Lantz said.

"We knew I had a pretty strong year the past season, so we kind of just took a step of faith and entered the portal. We had no idea where we'd end up. The chance to come to USC was honestly a chance of a lifetime."