USC Cornerback Isiah Wiley Declared Ineligible, Marquis Simmons & Brian Baucham Cleared

The shell game Lane Kiffin must play to keep his talented but thin USC Trojans in the BCS championship hunt already has the head coach’s hands moving fast. USC lost starting quarterback Isiah Wiley on Friday, when he was declared academically ineligible. Wiley cracked the starting defense last season when injuries in the Trojan secondary began to mount.

I am teetering dangerously close to redundancy, but the truth bears reiterating. Depth issues will be the single greatest challenge for USC this season — well, that and Oregon — whether it’s patching holes on an already depleted defensive line or maintaining pace into fourth quarters. Wiley’s departure hurts, though the secondary is somewhat better off than the line with Nickell Roby and Jawanza Starling both returning. Still, Kiffin walks a narrow tight rope.

He did get some good news on Friday. Los Angeles Times writer Gary Klein reported linebacker Marquis Simmons and cornerback Brian Baucham were both cleared. Klein also quotes Kiffin downplaying the loss of Wiley significantly, while trumpeting further roster additions in the days ahead.

"“We didn’t want to invest a lot of time in guys that we weren’t sure whether they were going to be here,” Kiffin said. “Now, all of a sudden, we’d be sitting here . . . going ‘Now what do we do?’“The blow is not as big, I think, because of the way that we went about it.”"