Change keeps coming to Los Angeles as another piece of USC’s depth chart heads for the exits. While the Trojans try to regroup from another playoff-less year, their wide receiver room is already shifting, with former three-star Florida product Prince Strachan expected to hit the NCAA transfer portal after a lone season in cardinal and gold.
Limited by an early ankle issue and buried behind headliners like projected first-rounder Makai Lemon and rising target Ja’Kobi Lane, Strachan managed just one catch for 25 yards in a 73-13 opener against Missouri State before disappearing from the rotation.
Now, as he prepares to join his third program in as many years, USC’s staff faces another scholarship decision at a position that has rarely lacked talent but has often lacked continuity.
The bigger headline, though, is on the back end of the defense. According to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports, USC star redshirt junior safety Kamari Ramsey is set to enter the NFL Draft, with NFL scouts viewing him as an early-round player and one of the top prospects among draft-eligible safeties.
For a secondary that has been under the microscope throughout Lincoln Riley’s tenure, losing a rangy, physical safety with that kind of league buzz is a serious blow.
Ramsey’s decision crystallizes why his stock is so intriguing: he brings modern safety traits, coverage versatility, and downhill physicality in a frame pro teams can easily project.
Not every headline in the Trojans’ offseason is about departures. On the offensive side, running back Waymond Jordan has already announced he will return for the 2026 season after a shortened breakout year in which he rushed for 576 yards in six games before getting hurt.
His choice to come back gives Riley a proven centerpiece in the backfield and offers some badly needed continuity in a locker room dealing with attrition at multiple spots.
Put together, it is a familiar picture in Southern California: high-end talent cycling out to the NFL or the portal, new faces on the way in, and USC trying to thread the needle between reloading and rebuilding while it chases relevance in the Big Ten and a place in the expanded College Football Playoff.
