{"id":709648,"date":"2026-01-27T19:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/709648\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:41:14","slug":"uscs-first-super-bowl-qb-seriously-plus-cignetti-raises-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/709648\/","title":{"rendered":"USC\u2019s first Super Bowl QB? Seriously? Plus, Cignetti raises pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Until Saturday Newsletter \ud83c\udfc8\u00a0| This is The Athletic\u2019s college football newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Hello. How are you? Over the next two weeks, you\u2019re going to hear the following Super Bowl fun fact about a hundred times, so here\u2019s some background you can share as a follow-up:<\/p>\n

Him? USC\u2019s surprising first Super Bowl QB<\/p>\n

Not really sure which of these two statements will end up being more surprising:<\/p>\n

As of January 2026, no USC quarterback has ever started a Super Bowl.\u00a0The Trojans have had more QBs drafted than any other school: 26, followed by Notre Dame\u2019s 25 (and those Irish QBs were mostly long ago). USC has always had a case to be considered the top QBU, going back and forth in the modern era with Oklahoma in\u00a0ESPN\u2019s ratings<\/a> on that subject \u2014 and that was before the Chicago Bears\u2019 Caleb Williams ended up counting more for USC than for OU.
\nOn Feb. 8, the first Trojan to do it will be \u2026 Sam Darnold!\u00a0Not Williams, the Heisman Trophy winner who led\u00a0about 79 different comebacks<\/a>\u00a0this NFL season. Not fellow No. 1 pick Carson Palmer or any of those other two dozen. Instead, it\u2019s a man who once labored through a combined half-decade as a Jet and a Panther.<\/p>\n

When you look back through\u00a0the list<\/a>\u00a0of Trojans who got drafted to play quarterback, though, this fun fact starts to feel less surprising. Palmer and Williams are two of the list\u2019s very few names with any Super Bowl-esque particles whatsoever. The former only reached one conference championship, and Williams fell just short in his second NFL season.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, to remember USC quarterbacks in the pros means remembering Mark Sanchez\u2019s Jets somehow made two straight AFC title games. Rodney Peete reached a second round with the Eagles in 1995. Pat Haden\u2019s 1979 Rams made the Super Bowl, but he was injured weeks prior. Rob Hertel, Mike Rae,\u00a0Rob Johnson, Matt Cassel and Matt Leinart were Super Bowl backups. Kyle Wachholtz has a ring \u2026 as a Packers tight end. And of course a million other Trojans have won NFL rings at other positions.<\/p>\n

(Technically, one USC QB has led a Super Bowl victory. Mike Holmgren, who threw a 1968 touchdown as a Trojan, won it all as Green Bay\u2019s head coach.)<\/p>\n

Regardless, it\u2019s pretty cool that USC\u2019s Super Bowl-breakthrough guy is Darnold.\u00a0Until now, the peak of the former California four-star recruit\u2019s career was 2016\u2019s Rose Bowl, when the redshirt freshman threw for 453 yards as the Offensive MVP in a 52-49 masterpiece against Saquon Barkley\u2019s Penn State. That season was enough to overcome a shaky 2017 and get him drafted No. 3 by the Jets, at which point most football fans reasonably\u00a0gave up on him forever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next thing you know: 2024\u2019s partially redemptive season in Minnesota, and now this run to a Super Bowl with Seattle (being played in Santa Clara, six hours north of his hometown).<\/p>\n

Darnold, 28, isn\u2019t the star of these Seahawks, a team led by its defense and former Ohio State receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. The QB threw 14 interceptions this season, third-most in the league. But he also threw for 4,048 yards, and\u00a0his team believes in him<\/a>. Plus, since Seattle is favored (-4.5 at BetMGM) to beat New England, its quarterback is thus\u00a0favored to be Super Bowl MVP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sam Darnold! The guy from the 2016 \u201cHey Arnold\u201d memes and\u00a0the 2019 mononucleosis graphic<\/a>! Super Bowl MVP favorite! That\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n

How\u2019d he hang on through so many rough years, making it all the way to football\u2019s only stage significantly bigger than Pasadena\u2019s? Our Jayson Jenks\u00a0asked Max Browne<\/a>, whom Darnold once replaced as USC\u2019s starter:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always so intense for me. You know,\u00a0the Mamba mentality. The work. The process.\u00a0When I think about guys who were not that way, Sam is the first one that comes to mind. And I think that\u2019s why Sam never lost himself when things got tough during his first eight years in the NFL. He stayed light and kept perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat mindset didn\u2019t just help him survive the challenging times \u2014 it propelled him to the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long-term patience. Vision. Trust. Things of that nature. Sounds great, as long as your job doesn\u2019t involve, ya know, trying to live up to Curt Cignetti\u2019s timeline. Good luck to you, if it does. Let\u2019s come back to this below.<\/p>\n

More USC:\u00a0Former TCU head coach Gary Patterson is the\u00a0new defensive coordinator<\/a>\u00a0for Lincoln Riley, his 2010s Big 12 rival.
\nQuick Snaps<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc6 \u201cIt used to be that you needed to be a great high school evaluator \u2026 and good ol\u2019 boy with donors. Now, you better be really good at evaluating college tape and knowing how to price it.\u201d Since all college football coaches now have to attempt the impossible task of being Cignetti, here are\u00a0the lessons they\u2019re taking<\/a>\u00a0from his title run.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udd7e\ufe0f Matt Patricia was surprisingly great in Year 1 as Ohio State\u2019s DC (and\/or his lineup happened to include three likely top-10 draft picks). Now, Ryan Day is\u00a0adding another NFL coach as coordinator<\/a>: Arthur Smith, former Falcons head coach and most recent Steelers OC.<\/p>\n

\u26f5\ufe0f If an athletic director\u2019s three most important tasks are hiring a football coach and two basketball coaches, then\u00a0Vanderbilt has the best AD right now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcf0 News:<\/p>\n

The NCAA will begin allowing teams to\u00a0wear ads on uniforms<\/a>. Eww.
\nHow Mohamed Toure, Miami\u2019s leading tackler, is\u00a0able to return for an eighth season<\/a>. College is all about making lots and lots and lots of memories.
\nNorth Dakota State sounds\u00a0as open as ever<\/a> to the idea of a long-discussed FBS move. Nothing underway, however.
\nFor the third year in the past five, Rutgers lost more than $70 million on sports,\u00a0per NJ Advance Media<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 despite this time getting $72 million from the Big Ten. Man, just move football to FCS and otherwise rejoin the Big East.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc74\ud83c\udffb Diego Pavia\u2019s height, according to Vanderbilt and New Mexico State: an even 6 feet. According to this week\u2019s Senior Bowl: 5-9 7\/8. To be fair, he is kind of an old person, so it\u2019s possible he\u2019s begun shrinking. (The main NFL Draft stuff to know<\/a>\u00a0from Mobile.)<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 I can believe Indiana\u2019s really good at football, but only because I saw it happen before in a video game. But now you\u2019re trying to tell me\u00a0Nebraska\u2019s really good at basketball<\/a>? Be serious.<\/p>\n

Portal Stuff: Next QB up, over and over<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another quote from that Cignetti article, on\u00a0the lessons coaches are learning from him<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the component of patience and development is being strained by a lot of us. Can you wait? I had a Big Ten coach tell me it\u2019s basically 18 months for skill players and 24-plus for linemen to develop. You\u2019ve gotta be able to move your roster along.\u201d<\/p>\n

That existential urgency applies to all levels of the sport, relating to everything from trotting out freshman wide receivers to investing in slow-developing quarterbacks like \u2026 well, Darnold.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t win if you don\u2019t spend. You can\u2019t spend if fans don\u2019t care enough to invest. Fans don\u2019t care unless you convince them you might win soon. That\u2019s the cycle every coach has faced for over a century, even before Cignetti decimated the concept of \u201csoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep that in mind when you see so many young QBs transferring every year.\u00a0Another quote, this one from Antonio Morales\u2019 article on\u00a0why schools don\u2019t develop their own quarterbacks anymore<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such thing as a build,\u201d a Power 4 head coach told\u00a0The Athletic. \u201cYou may go from being undefeated to being on the hot seat in 12 months. So this era just forces you to constantly win, which removes the ability to have growing pains with a young quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n

QB transfer chaos isn\u2019t really about Kids These Days having especially happy feet. All human feet have always been happy. It\u2019s also about coaches\u00a0feeling pressured to rifle through potential solutions, keeping the mob at bay. (And to be fair, why should the mob put up with unenjoyable football? I say this as someone who has watched many Atlanta Falcons games.)<\/p>\n

Combine\u00a0an ungovernable transactions system<\/a>\u00a0with a sport in which you are today what people believe you will be tomorrow. Mass impatience was always going to be the only outcome.<\/p>\n

Schools do still develop QBs, of course. They just develop them for each other. Last year\u2019s\u00a0Tennessee-UCLA trade<\/a>\u00a0(and this year\u2019s\u00a0Syracuse-Kennesaw State trade<\/a>), for instance. The days of training your backup for three years so that he can take over as your senior might mostly be gone, but maybe your new starter was better off spending his first three years as a California Golden Bear anyway?<\/p>\n

Guess we\u2019ll find out in September!<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in portal stuff over the last few days:<\/p>\n

Today,\u00a0Duke and QB Darian Mensah reached a resolution that will allow him to play elsewhere,\u00a0ending their legal battle<\/a>.
\nLane Kiffin\u2019s 39th LSU transfer was a big one: Colorado OT Jordan Seaton. We\u2019ll have to see how much of this overhaul was a net gain, but\u00a0Seaton was very highly sought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Late last week, Dabo Swinney\u00a0went off<\/a>\u00a0on Ole Miss, accusing Pete Golding\u2019s staff of tampering. The NCAA is now\u00a0looking into the matter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the NCAA investigates,\u00a0Clemson\u2019s roster page<\/a>\u00a0for the transferred player in question, linebacker Luke Ferrelli, is nothing but a link to a video of Swinney calling out Ole Miss.<\/p>\n

Love Until Saturday? Check out\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Until Saturday Newsletter \ud83c\udfc8\u00a0| This is The Athletic\u2019s college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[331,7,49,48,8242],"class_list":{"0":"post-709648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-usc-trojans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115968769017147817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}