Lincoln Riley details USC's approach to transfer portal

With the NCAA transfer portal open for the next couple weeks, coaches around the country are figuring out exactly what their strategy is and then working to execute it to make their roster better. USC coach Lincoln Riley is one of them.

Riley explained that as he continues to get deeper into his tenure, he envisions his program using the transfer portal less and less.

“We’re certainly going to be targeting a couple of positions in the portal,” Riley said. “I think it’s going to continue to taper down and that has kind of been our goal from the beginning.

“Even looking back to two years ago as we started to map it out, I think goal one here was starting to establish some culture and some winning ways, and then I think building a roster that could be competitve in the first couple years and that can give yourself a chance to win and to win championships.”

USC has done a pretty good job establishing a winning culture to this point. The program was a hair away from a Pac-12 title a year ago in Riley’s first season. This season was sunk thanks to a poor defense.

Might that be one area Riley targets in the portal?

“There’s a bigger picture that’s more zoomed out, which is I think is starting to gradually work toward building the program in a more ideal sense, and that for us is getting to signing full high school classes, developing the guys that we have in house, supplementing here and there with portal guys and then going on,” Riley said. “I think we’d certainly like to get more in that direction, and I think we will. We have trended there, we will continue to trend that way. If we can keep bringing up high school classes like this group of true freshmen that we have right now on campus then it’s going to be a really positive thing.”

Lincoln Riley discusses quarterback strategy

One thing that Riley made clear is that quarterback will potentially be a position the Trojans look to add at. With Caleb Williams sitting out the team’s bowl game all but certain to depart, there’s a need for a new starting quarterback.

“We’re going to look in the portal at some quarterbacks,” Riley said. “We’ll see how that thing unfolds. I like the guys that we have in the room, but I also, you always have a responsibility to the team to continue to look at potential people that can come in and make our room better and make our team bettter. Not ready to say that we would for sure do anything, we’re just, we’re going to take a look and evaluate and see how it all unfolds. Excited for those guys. Obviously excited for their opportunity upcoming.”

USC will return a couple of quarterbacks that will compete for the job, and Riley provided a rundown on both.

“I’ve been super pleased with Miller (Moss). I’ll talk about him first, just in his development. Very excited for the way that he’s progressed. I think he’s been really, really strong here as the backup the last two years and I think has gained a lot of momentum. I think he’s really improved as a player. I would like to have been able to play him a little bit more here in the last couple of years. With the opportunities he has had he’s played well and he’s moved us well, which I think is no surprise. I fully expect him to be in the mix no matter what happens.

“Malachi (Nelson)‘s obviously a young guy. He’s got a world of talent. He’s working hard. He’s had a few physical hurdles that he’s had to overcome, which has not been, it hasn’t necessarily been the smoothest of years. A lot of it out of his control, just trying to get back healthy where he can train and develop to the level that he wants to and we all want him to. And he’s certainly going to get there and certainly has a bright future and has really battled for a lot of things. So we’re eager to get him back completely healthy and back where he’s developing on a really fast track, and I don’t think he’s that far away from it, but that’s still been a little bit of a process.”

Given those positive comments from Riley about his current quarterbacks, it’ll be fascinating to see if USC does, in fact, take a quarterback from the transfer portal and if so what caliber of quarterback.

In any case, Lincoln Riley summed up what he’s looking for.

“Specifically with quarterbacks, we’re looking at it,” he said. “My goal right now is always to have multiple guys in the room that you feel like are starter level guys, that you feel like can really compete.”