USC football's crowd problem is real, and it isn't resolved yet. The No. 14-ranked Trojans drew another thin house for their Friday night home opener against the Fresno State Bulldogs at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, continuing the pattern set in Week 0 when a sparse turnout against San Jose State sent social media into a roasting session. A Big Ten program that looks capable of a solid year is still staring at rows of empty red seats at kickoff.
The case for concern starts with what Week 0 produced. USC won that game convincingly, 42-26 over San Jose State, but the story that traveled wasn't the scoreboard. It was the empty coliseum. The criticism was sharp enough that head coach Lincoln Riley stepped forward to call the narrative a "false narrative," a rebuttal that, if anything, extended the story's shelf life into Week 1. Then Fresno State arrived on a Friday night, and the opening-gun attendance came in looking similar.
The counterargument deserves a fair hearing, and on the specifics it carries real weight. The Fresno State game fell on a Friday night before a holiday weekend in a city with a notoriously difficult commute. Fresno State is a Pac-12 program, but this was not a rivalry game, and it was not the kind of matchup that typically drives early arrivals in a market this size. By the second quarter, the stadium had filled out reasonably well by the standards of a non-conference Week 1 tilt. L.A. crowds run late. That is not unique to USC, and it is not a new observation.
On balance, two consecutive home games with thin kickoff attendance is enough to keep the question open. The risk is a narrative that compounds: once the empty-seats image gets attached to a program, it can start to affect the experience of the fans who do show up. What's changed as the schedule turns is the opponent quality. The line to watch is Sept. 26. USC hosts the Oregon Ducks in its first home Big Ten conference game of the year, and that matchup will say things about the Trojans' draw that a Fresno State Friday night simply could not.