Lincoln Riley addresses how USC has used transfer portal to rebuild roster

There’s a reason Lane Kiffin dubbed USC coach Lincoln Riley the new “Portal King.” Riley hit the portal hard to rebuild USC’s roster as he gets ready for his first season at the helm.

Tuesday, he talked with FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd about how he did it.

USC landed three top-25 transfer portal prospects, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings. The Trojans got former Oregon running back Travis Dye (No. 25), former Oklahoma wide receiver Mario Williams (No. 14) and the crown jewel: former Oklahoma quarterback Caleb Williams, the No. 1 player in the portal. He also got Latrell McCutchin to follow him from Oklahoma.

So, it’s worth asking: How did he do it? He explained.

“The rules are the rules,” Riley said on The Herd. “I think there’s kind of two parts. There’s the purists, there’s the person that obviously loves football. In some ways, maybe the fan of the game in you has an idea of the way you’d like to see it go.

“But then also, there’s the person that’s here to do a job and there’s a person that has a set of rules or parameters to work with and you’re going to do everything you can within those rules to help build your program and put it to an advantage. And so that’s what we’ve tried to do.”

Lincoln Riley explains why he ‘didn’t take players from Oklahoma’

When Lincoln Riley decided to leave Oklahoma in favor of USC, it had a major domino effect across the college football world. Not only in the coaching carousel, but in the transfer portal as well.

There has been a lot of cross-over between the Sooners and Trojans ever since the move was made official. While there might be some upset people in Norman about Riley taking some star players with him, the head coach explained why that’s not the case on Tuesday.

“We didn’t take players from Oklahoma,” Riley said on The Herd. “We took players from the transfer portal. Those players and their families had to make a decision to stay at that university … or to enter the portal where they could be recruited by anybody.”

Heading into spring practice, three players who were on Oklahoma’s roster last season will now be wearing USC colors. Quarterback Caleb Williams is the highest-profile name, while wide receiver Mario Williams is not too far behind. Cornerback Latrell McCutchin was the first of the three to make the switch, teaming back up with defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.