Lincoln Riley reveals what he's learned about the transfer portal process

Perhaps no coach utilized the NCAA Transfer Portal better in college football than Lincoln Riley since its creation.

First at Oklahoma and now bringing his prowess to the USC Trojans, Riley has exasperated the tool to find success at both programs. Ahead of his second season in Los Angeles, Riley explained what he’s learned about the process, and how he’s made it all work.

“The first thing I learned is you can take a lot of guys and coaches from a lot of different backgrounds, maybe people who have not had that much experience together, and you can come together and be a pretty darn good team quickly,” started Riley. “That took a lot of hard work. There was a lot of very — that was a special combination of people, to be able to get those results, and to come together as that team did in that fashion, and that short of time. So I definitely don’t take that for granted, and we’ve made that a big part of, as we have started to evaluate transfer guys after that, this group we brought in this year.

“We did not want to miss on that. Like, we didn’t want to take for granted that this just happens, because it doesn’t.

Continuing, Riley elaborated on the difference in his message to his transfer players from last season to this season. According to the Trojans head coach, last year’s crop was all about getting USC back to where they belonged, now it’s about pushing this thing past the goal post and getting to the top.

“Landing on the right kind of people, the guys who are just as excited to come help USC win as they are about trying to further their futures, or their careers, and understanding that they’re going to work hand-in-hand,” explained the USC leader. “So we’ve really stuck to that, which was the right thing in Year One, and we’re going to continue with that. You’ve got to bring the team-first guys in here. The guys that want to, last year the message was to those guys was come help us get this thing started.

“Now, the message is, for these upcoming guys and the portal guys that just came in, is alright, you’ve seen the start, now come help us push it over the top. There’s a lot of guys that want to do that.”

Alas, we can expect Lincoln Riley to continue to use the NCAA Transfer Portal to his advantage moving forward, and for coaches to try to emulate his success. However, he’s been often imitated and never duplicated thus far, and it’s fair to expect that not to change in 2023.