Lincoln Riley on chances of a young retirement: 'There's other things I want to do'

Coaching into your mid-70s isn’t for everyone. With a healthy chunk of change in his bank account — there’s no reason for USC head coach Lincoln Riley to stick around forever.

Some coaches wait until they win a national championship before hanging it up, or wait until after they’ve rewritten their school’s record books. At the end of the day, all of that might not be the end goal for Riley.

“I’m on the clock,” Riley, 40, said on an appearance on ‘In Depth’ with Graham Bensinger. “I don’t know how I’ll feel in a few years, when I became a head coach so young – I became a head coach at 33 – my mindset was always like, ‘If I can make it to 50.’ Because there [are] other things I want to do.

“I don’t even know exactly what they are. I don’t know that I have the list right now. But I just know there’s other things I want to do and experience. And I may have a different tune when I get to 49, but I don’t care a lot about legacy. I don’t care, in terms of like how many games you won. I’ve never cared about that. Whenever I’m on my deathbed, I don’t think I’m gonna give a damn about how many games I won, or if I have a statue.”

Since becoming a head coach in 2017, Riley has been to three College Football Playoffs as head coach of Oklahoma and is expected to be a contender in 2023 during his second season with the Trojans. He’s an impressive 69-13 with four Big 12 Conference Championships under his belt. Riley has done more in seven years than most coaches will do in their lifetime.

Of course, this isn’t to say he isn’t invested in his job. He has a life outside of football just like everyone else. His wife, Caitlin Riley, had a similar perspective on his career. It’s almost as if they’ve talked about it before, as she revealed a few specifics of his post-football plans.

“My gut is that he, that we will retire early,” she said. “For sure… Just because to him I don’t think there’s a tangible goal of, ‘I need to win this many championships or accomplish this much to be successful, and I can’t retire until that point.’

“Our time is valuable to him, and so he wants to travel and do things with the girls when they’re growing up for things that he feels like.”

Whether that day comes sooner or later remains to be seen, but that won’t be happening this season. His Trojans are ranked No. 5 in the latest AP Top 25 Poll and are looking to improve to 4-0 with a victory over Arizona State (1-1) during Week 4, as they’re on their BYE this week.