Lincoln Riley discusses mentality in piecing together coaching staff at USC

After a successful run as Oklahoma‘s head coach, Lincoln Riley is now living in Los Angeles and leading the USC football program. Taking over a prestigious program that hasn’t been as successful as of late, there’s high expectations for Riley to get the Trojans back on track in 2022.

While Riley compiled an impressive 55-10 overall record in five seasons at Oklahoma from 2017-2021, it’s evident that the coach knows how to build programs and win games – and that’s what he plans to do at USC, with the help of the top-tier coaching staff he has put together.

With Riley serving as the Trojans’ leader, the head coach’s primary assistants include Dennis Simmons (assistant head coach), Alex Grinch (defensive coordinator) and Josh Henson (offensive coordinator) – in addition to many other key position coaches.

Joining USC’s Trojans Live show on Tuesday, Riley was asked about his coaching staff and shared how he thinks their success will carry over to their USC players.

“We’re eager,” Riley said. “We’re very eager. We’re still learning what it takes to win – what that looks like. That was a big reason why, I think, as you look at how we put together the staff, we got some of the top guys – some elite coaches and people that are very elite in their lines of work. We wanted two things: one, people who were dying to be at USC, and we wanted people that had won. … People that have experienced it, people that know what it looks like so that when we try to transfer this over to our team and our players, we’re doing it with people that know what it’s like.

“We’re not having to teach the staff, per se, what it’s like to be a part of a championship program. It’s kind of all of us pouring that into our players – and our players are eager. We’ve got a core combination of players that have been here and are excited to see this become what it can and should be again, then some new players that certainly wanted to be a part of that change and a part of this university and football program.”

USC, which is coming off a 4-8 season in 2021, is scheduled to open the Lincoln Riley era on Saturday, Sept. 3 against Rice at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.