Rookie ace: Riley Goodman to lead ailing USC rotation after missing 2025 season
The 2025 baseball season is one South Carolina coach Paul Mainieri and his staff would probably rather forget. But it can’t all be a disaster, and life’s about finding the good in the bad.
One of the biggest “goods” for USC in 2025 was Riley Goodman, and the accomplishment of getting him to campus and keeping him around, even after the season that it was.
Goodman, an all-state pitcher from Memphis, Tennessee, committed to the Gamecocks under previous head coach Mark Kingston. In May 2024, Goodman tore the UCL in his right arm in a high school game and underwent Tommy John surgery. Shortly after, on June. 3, 2024, Kingston was fired.
“It was scary with the change in the coaching staff, but they reassured me a lot and made me feel great about it,” Goodman said. “Coming in with our trainers and everything just made me feel great about it, so I was confident.”
Goodman ramps up for 2026
The right-hander missed the entire 2025 season recovering from surgery. USC went 28-29 and 6-24 in the SEC, missing the postseason altogether. That time being out, Goodman said, taught him important lessons he might’ve not learned otherwise.
“It was everything. I think that a lot of people misunderstand that this is a 90% mental game,” Goodman said. “Going through that injury and coming back from it, I think the biggest hoop you’ve got to jump through is the mental side. I learned a lot.”
Goodman made a full return to the mound with USC this fall. He was simply dominant as the Gamecocks geared up for 2026, Mainieri said, but Goodman had some hiccups in his only intrasquad pitching appearance of the fall, a one-inning stint in an 8-1 win on the road against Charleston. He loaded the bases with a walk, a single and a hit-by-pitch before stranding the runners scoreless with three strikeouts.
“I was actually happy to see him have the bases get loaded on him in the first inning, because he dominated so much in the scrimmage games, he hardly ever had to pitch out of a jam, and this time he did,” Mainieri said. “I think Riley, the future is really bright for him. Now, he has never pitched, other than that one inning in the fall, an inning in college baseball. So we’ll kind of see how we play it with him.”
The rookie ace
At the time of USC baseball’s media day on Jan. 22, Goodman was one five pitchers Mainieri named as a candidate for the Saturday and Sunday starting pitcher jobs. Junior lefty Jake McCoy was expected to handle duties on Fridays.
Since then, McCoy has undergone Tommy John surgery himself, Mainieri told The Big Spur and GamecockCentral on Feb. 5. He also said another starter candidate, Florida transfer Alex Philpott, has been shut down for two weeks with a UCL rupture but won’t require surgery.
USC’s banged-up pitching staff opened the lane for Goodman to take a big-time role with the Gamecocks. Mainieri named Goodman the opening day starter Feb. 5 for USC’s matchup against Northern Kentucky on Feb. 13, followed by Amp Phillips on Saturday and Brandon Stone on Sunday, per The Big Spur and GamecockCentral.
While the rotation could move around when Philpott returns, Goodman has a real chance to cement himself as USC’s ace pitcher in the early going. He’s inexperienced, but his fastball touching 97 mph and a workable slider fit the bill of an SEC starter. He’ll have a somewhat lax non-conference schedule to start the season and build up confidence before he potentially could take the mound Feb. 27 at home vs. Clemson.
“It makes me feel great that (Mainieri)’s confident in me,” Goodman said. “But you know, no matter where he puts me, I’m just gonna go out there and do my thing.”