USC will begin the 2026 college baseball season at Dedeaux Field on Friday, Feb. 13. The Trojans will play all of their home games in active construction zone as they strive for relevance in the Big Ten.
Rain of any kind is going to be an issue.
The bad news is that the college baseball stadium on campus at the University of Southern California is not complete. The good news is that this was always going to be the case. There is a plan in place.
USC is renovating its college baseball stadium.
Believe it or not, USC actually has the most national championships in college baseball history. The Trojans won 12 College World Series titles, which is four more than the Tigers of LSU. Just not recently.
They won in 1948, 1958, 1961, 1963, 1968, 1970-74, 1978 and 1998. That rimpressive run during the 70s produced MLB players like Fred Lynn, Rich Dauer, Dave Kingman and Roy Smalley. Other notable alumni include Tom Seaver, Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson, Mark Prior, Geoff Jenkins, Aaron Boone, Bary Zito, Garrett Stubbs and Tyler Gilbert, among many others.
USC has produced 119 major leaguers in program history, more than any other NCAA program. It can claim 67 All-Star appearances, 29 World Series appearances, nine Cy Young awards, three Hall of Famers, three Rookie of the Year Awards, one AL MVP and one World Series MVP. Not bad.
However, the Trojans have reached an NCAA Tournament Regional in only two seasons since 2006.
As it tries to return to the dominance of a previous era, USC chose to renovate its stadium as a member of the Big Ten. The capacity of Dedeaux Field will increase from 2,500 to 3,000 with a state-of-the-art video board, a right field social area, enhanced permanent concessions locations, and many other amenities. The facility will also house a state-of-the-art locker room and players’ lounge, new coaches offices and meeting rooms, nutrition stations, indoor batting cages, an analytics lab and a pitching lab.
Although the project is underway, it won’t be complete until next season. Dedeaux Field will also not be an official site for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 because of the renovation. Oh well.
The Trojans will play 2026 in a construction zone.
There are less than 30 days until the start of the 2026 college baseball season as of this writing. The college baseball stadium at the University of Southern California is not finished.
This was always the plan but expectations do not make the current situation any less jarring.
Dedeaux Field looks like a construction zone, because it is. Here is a live look as of Thursday night:
This was on Sunday:
The new and improved Dedeaux Field that @USC_Baseball has is going to be absolutely incredible once it’s complete. pic.twitter.com/XxViqpivTf
— 𝐋𝐞𝐬 𝐋𝐮𝐤𝐚𝐜𝐡 (@LesLukach) January 18, 2026
Fortunately, the project has come a long way since the summer. It was a complete overhaul, from the ground up.
There was a lot of work still to be done at the start of the fall semester.
Most construction projects take longer than expected. Shoutout to the crew at USC. The field is not finished but it is playable. That was the goal. The goal was met.
And this is by no means the first time that a Division I athletics program is going to play in an active construction zone. Vanderbilt had construction going on during a football game in 2023! Still weird.