With about a month remaining in the 2024 college football season, redshirt decisions are being made. And USC Head coach Lincoln Riley I've already given the topic a lot.

With four games left to play, Riley shared that there is only one player who is close to burning a potential redshirt by playing in a fifth game, freshman linebacker Elijah Newby. Besides him, Riley expects the rest of the players who played in 1, 2 or 3 games to end up redshirting.

“Not too many,” Riley said of players on the verge of redshirting. “Newby is one we will try to redshirt. We'll see how the next few games play out, but we'll likely wait until the postseason to play him again unless something changes. We have several guys that are playing between one and three games right now, and the majority of those guys will probably try to redshirt.”

And Riley noted that at this point, all of the above is a plan. Things can change for any number of reasons, and some players expected to redshirt could be brought in for more games.

“Look again at how this plays out and then we have some that have already crossed the threshold. So I think Newby is the main player right now playing a few snaps for us, mostly on special teams that we have.” “I'm going to try to hang in there,” Riley said.

Riley shared that a veteran lineman will return to USC in 2025

Riley announced Thursday that he is a sixth-year offensive lineman Gino Quinoneswho will have to sit out the rest of the season, plans to return in 2025.

Riley was asked if Quinones would apply for a seventh season.

“For all I know he’ll try,” Riley said. “I mean, he still has a year left either way, but I know he's working on figuring out if it's one or two. So of course we’ll see how this develops.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Quinones played just 21 offensive snaps this season, all in a blowout win over Utah State in Week 2. He was listed as out for the season on the team's Big Ten availability report prior to last week's game against Rutgers. which the Trojans won clearly with 42-20.

Notably, Quinones suffered a season-ending knee injury in the second game of USC's 2023 season after starting the opening game against San Jose State, in which he played 42 offensive snaps, per PFF, rotating at the guard positions and even center played.