Lincoln Riley on USC firing on all cylinders: 'We want it to happen yesterday'

It’s an open secret that expectations are high at USC for Lincoln Riley and Co. and that they’ve ultimately fallen short of them. But the head coach isn’t running from the realities facing down him and his program.

And as the Trojans enter Year 3 under Riley with a new quarterback — one who hasn’t won the Heisman — and hopes for an improved defense, the idea is whatever steps to build along the way will start to pay off and USC will rise to true contention.

Because no matter what, the coaches and players are always going to be eager for championship-level success.

“Well, there’s no patience. It’s just an understanding of it is what it is. Our patience is — we want it to happen yesterday,” Riley said. “And that’s been our mentality from the day we walked in here. I mean, despite all the things we knew, gotta build and you guys, probably most of you were there, the day I got hired I stood up there and said ‘Championships are going to be the deal from the beginning.’

“And everybody looked at me like I was crazy and nobody thought it was possible and we put ourselves right there. So yeah, no limitations on what we can do, there’s definitely no patience. There’s an incredible sense of urgency but we also understand that the key is everybody involved, we can’t ever get down when one thing doesn’t go perfect.”

And when things have looked good for USC under Riley, it’s looked arguably as good as any brand of football in the country. In 2022, Riley’s first season at the helm, the Trojans had a punishing big-play offense built around Caleb Williams and an opportunistic defense that created a massive turnover margin. Behind that formula, USC made it to the Pac-12 title game and the cusp of the College Football Playoff.

But as 2023 demonstrated — and as Riley implicitly attested to — things got sideways for the Trojans at times. And issues on the field started to cause mental anguish of it, snowballing things.

It seems, though, that Riley and his team are trying to make use of the lessons they learned in 2023 and can get what they wanted to happen yesterday to at least be a thing of the present.

“Because the path, it’s not going to be perfect,” Riley said. “And I think it’s more just an understanding of that. It’s going to continually build. It’s going to continually grow. We’re going to build on and celebrate the successes and try to replicate and get as many of those as we can. And then when we have something that doesn’t go away we’re going to use it as a chance to learn, it’s going to motivate us more and we’re going to fix it and we’re going to get better. And I mean, one of those two things are going to happen and that’s how we’re going to respond no matter what. And when you — our history as a staff tells us and confirms, when you continually do that, you build. And that’s how we’re doing it.