Lincoln Riley discusses NIL ‘boundaries’ keeping players focused

There are few brands in college football as recognizable as USC. In the city of Los Angeles and with the returning Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, plenty of head coach Lincoln Riley‘s players have had the opportunity to benefit from NIL.

One reality of NIL for players is that it does create obligations that they need to fill away from football. Because of that, Riley believes it’s important to set up boundaries with them.

“I think you’ve got to draw clear lines, draw boundaries,” Lincoln Riley said. “And that’s what we’ve tried to do is be very transparent with our guys at the beginning about the boundaries.”

Lincoln Riley emphasized that he wants players to have NIL opportunities. He also doesn’t want it to be their top priority.

“We want them to have NIL opportunities. We want them to be successful. We want them to take advantage of all we have here, and there is a lot, but at the same time school and football are not going to be compromised. That’s not gonna happen,” Riley said.

“And we’ve been lucky. Our guys have done really well in NIL, but we haven’t had a lot of things where a guy is missing a class, or a guy is missing a workout because of some NIL opportunity. Like, our guys, they understand it and they get it.”

USC players have certainly taken advantage of their NIL opportunities under Lincoln Riley. Unsurprisingly, Caleb Williams is the most notable for NIL on the football team. He currently has an On3 NIL Valuation of $2.6 million. That makes him fourth on the NIL 100, behind only Bronny James, Livvy Dunne, and Arch Manning. He’s also had recent deals with United Airlines and PlayStation.

Williams isn’t alone, though, and USC has several NIL collectives to help players in this space. Conquest Collective, House of Victory, and The TOMMY Group all have a focus on the football program.

“It’s not a non-issue but it’s not something we’d sit there and deal with on a daily basis, and I think that speaks to the quality of the kind of player that we have on this team.”

Lincoln Riley on how Caleb Williams can take his game to the next level

Caleb Williams won the Heisman Trophy in 2022 and enters the 2023 season as the presumptive number one overall pick in the next NFL Draft. Still, Lincoln Riley thinks that he can take his game to the next level.

“Yeah, the relationship just continues to get better and better. You get more In sync. He’s getting the ability to finish a lot of my sentences, which is a good thing,” Riley said.

“He’s got to continue to improve. Winning awards like that (the Heisman) are great, but it’s far from ultimate goals; it’s far from perfection. And that’s that thing we may never get there, but we all try to chase. So, I think, for him, it’s just building himself up, just like we need to be doing as a team. But building himself up to be ready for all these new challenges that are coming.”