Kliff Kingsbury returns to offensive analyst role after Lincoln Riley sickness

When Lincoln Riley fell “under the weather” earlier this week, USC attempted to move Kliff Kingsbury into an active assistant role for the time being. Now that Riley is back at practice, Kingsbury is heading back to his role as a senior offensive analyst.

Kingsbury joined Riley’s staff this year as a senior analyst after being let go as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals following the 2022 season. They were at Texas Tech together as players in 2002 under the late Mike Leach, and they reunited at USC this year.

Riley stepped away from the Trojans earlier this week to deal with a health issue, which the program confirmed to the pneumonia. He returned to practice on Wednesday, one day after USC worked with compliance to make Kingsbury an active assistant coach in the meantime. Dennis Simmons moved up to acting head coach this week while Riley was absent, missing two practices.

In addition to missing practice, Riley also missed his radio show this week after he fell ill, the program said. USC hasn’t yet confirmed his status for this week’s game against Cal.

Lincoln Riley: Kliff Kingsbury is ‘a really great get’ for USC’s staff

After bringing Kingsbury aboard in the offseason, Riley talked about what he brings to the staff. In addition to his time with the Cardinals — which ended with a 28-37-1 record — Kingsbury also worked as the head coach at Texas Tech, working with Patrick Mahomes.

While Riley said it was “surreal” to reconnect with Kingsbury, he said the hire makes USC better as a program.

“He’s obviously got familiarity with our offense,” Riley said. “He’s got familiarity with a lot of the members on our staff. So I think that that certainly made sense. And yeah, I mean, obviously his experience, both on the both on the offensive side will be very helpful in terms of game planning, some of those things that they can do off the field, have another set of eyes, they’re very, very helpful. And then obviously the added benefit with a guy like Kliff is a guy that’s been the head coach at this level and at the professional level, somebody that had to sit in that chair and make those decisions.

“Whether it’s something on game day or it’s something just through the course of a normal week, it’s always great to have another opinion. And then kind of an outside perspective that you know, that maybe it’s not tied to one position … Coach Kingsbury was a really great get and it’s gonna make us a lot better.”