ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit spent part of his latest podcast taking USC football fans to task after a thin crowd showed up for the Trojans’ home opener.
USC beat San Jose State 42-26 last weekend at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but the announced crowd of about 51,000 left large sections of the historic stadium looking empty.
Herbstreit, ESPN’s lead college football color commentator, brought up the turnout and the explanations that followed on “Nonstop with Kirk and Joey.”
He praised the Trojans for the Week 0 win, then said supporters need to fill the building now rather than wait until the team is chasing a conference title.
“First of all, USC fans, I don’t care what time the game is,” Herbstreit said.
“I don’t care what the deal is, I don’t care how hot it is. Get your ass to the Coliseum. I mean, that’s embarrassing for USC to play in front of a half-empty stadium, and you’re going to jump on the bandwagon because this team is going to be in the mix for the Big Ten. They’re going to play in a lot of big games. So let’s get out to the Coliseum and watch this team.”
The 14th-ranked Trojans opened the season under coach Lincoln Riley with a clean, high-scoring home win and still became an early punchline.
Critics pointed to kickoff time, heat in Los Angeles and a nonconference opponent as reasons the stands never filled.
Those explanations did little to quiet the reaction once the television shots circulated.
Herbstreit was not the only national voice who noticed. Radio host Paul Finebaum later went on “First Take” and accused the school of putting out AI generated garbage when it tried to explain the turnout.
The Coliseum holds more than 77,000. A crowd listed near 51,000 still looked sparse on camera, especially in the minutes before kickoff.
USC now has two more home games before ranked visitors start arriving. Fresno State and Louisiana are next on the schedule.
If those dates look the same, the fair-weather label will be hard to shake, even if the team keeps winning.
Herbstreit’s point was simple: the roster is good enough to stay in the Big Ten race, and the building should look like it.
College football programs sell atmosphere as much as they sell tickets. Empty seats undercut that pitch, no matter the score.
Riley’s staff has talked about building a consistent home-field edge since he arrived. That edge is harder to claim when the stands tell a different story.
Fans who did show up saw a comfortable win and an incident-free afternoon. The national conversation afterward still centered on who stayed home.
The next two weekends give USC a chance to change the pictures coming out of the Coliseum. Herbstreit made it clear he expects them to take it.
