How Lincoln Riley has showed self-awareness during 2023 offseason

On3’s J.D. PicKell continues his team-by-team assessment of college football programs heading into the 2023 season. Recently the college football expert unveiled his prediction of the Pac-12’s USC Trojans record. But before he revealed his prediction, PicKell praised the Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley for how he showed self-awareness this offseason.

“The interesting thing and the impressive thing to me about USC this offseason is the way Lincoln Riley has addressed the roster through the portal… the pieces they’ve added, to me, are showing a lot of self-awareness with Lincoln Riley,” said PicKell. “Because whenever you have your weaknesses, it’s not fun to look in the mirror look at your weaknesses. We’d much rather go back to we’re with and lean into our strengths. Lincoln Riley, he’s an offensive guy, and he says, okay, we’re losing games. Maybe we need to score points. Maybe they get more pieces to put more points on the board. We Rev the engine on the horsepower offensively. That would have been the easy thing to do. Instead, he goes to the portal and takes eight of the 14 guys from the transfer portal on the defensive side.”

The Trojans made most of their transfer portal moves on the defensive side of the ball, bringing in some serious talent. Topping the list of players is former Texas A&M edge Anthony Lucas, Oklahoma State linebacker Mason Cobb, and Georgia d-lineman Bear Alexander.

Riley had a strong notion of bringing in individuals to play within USC’s front seven. A group that PicKell coins as trench players.

“Six of those guys on the defensive side were what I call trench players. So like linebackers, edge defenders, defensive line; guys are going to make your football team tougher within that front seven. That was the emphasis for Lincoln Riley through the transfer portal, and that’s self-awareness to me.”

As he continued, the college football expert likened the USC program to a speedboat. Offensively they are fast and flying around. But defensively, they are taking on water. And instead of repeating the mistake of last year of trying to muscle through their defensive woes, the Trojans took a different approach.

“USC is built like a speedboat… they’re speedboat they have the ability to go fast. But you see, the speed boat’s taking on a little bit of water. Everyone is saying, hey, coach, taking on some water here. The defense is with 30 points a game. We got problems.

“You have two choices. You can say, okay, we’re a speed boat. Let’s go faster and get to shore and just gun it and try to find a way to get through there. Or you have the self-awareness and humility to say, okay, let’s take a step back. Let’s address that. What do we need to do to fix that? And that’s what I saw from them in the portal. That’s the way that I think they handled this past offseason, and I think that’s gonna be a benefit to them when it comes to the 2023 season.”

Riley had to take a tough look in the mirror following USC’s last two losses to close the season. Despite being injured, star quarterback Caleb Williams did all he could to keep the Trojans in contention to win the Pac-12 championship and their New Year’s Six bowl game. But USC still came up short in both games because of defensive letdowns. This year Riley is trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2022. And his actions in the transfer portal reflect that which is why PicKell is tipping his hat to the trojan’s head man.