Lincoln Riley: Shane Lee making instant impact at USC

During a sit-down interview, USC head coach Lincoln Riley spoke about the impact Alabama-transfer Shane Lee has had on their program immediately. Lee played three seasons with Alabama before entering the transfer portal this offseason and choosing USC as his new program. Riley spoke highly of the leadership Lee has brought to the Trojans, comparing him to another Alabama player that found a starring role with Riley at Oklahoma.

Lincoln Riley on Shane Lee

Lee joined the Trojans this season as a transfer after a few seasons of seeing his role diminish in Alabama’s defense. As a freshman, Lee played in 13 games recording 4.5 sacks and an interception. In the two years since, Lee has only played in five games and tallied 1.5 sacks and six total tackles.

With Riley taking over the USC program this season and an influx of new players via the transfer portal, Lee is an emerging leader within the program according to Riley.

“Shane, I would say, has been instrumental — this is a guy that’s been instrumental within our program from the day he came here,” said Riley. “Obviously he comes from a fantastic program himself. We had a lot of great talks throughout his recruitment about just kind of our vision for this place. Because you know, we’ve got a couple of guys that were internal here that are gonna be really good leaders. But we knew some of these guys that were coming in from a transfer standpoint were gonna be leaders as well.

“Shane’s been one of those guys that have been at the forefront. And way past that he’s got a ton of ability on the field. I’ve just been so impressed with him. His growth and his maturity and how invested he is in not just himself becoming an elite player, but also in this team winning championships. And in this program in such a short amount of time he’s had a huge impact.

“It reminds me a lot of when we brought Jalen Hurts to Oklahoma a few years ago. We had him for one year, but his impact — you could feel it immediately. And Shane’s had a very similar impact for this football team in the first 100 days. So, honored to have him in our program. It’s gonna be a lot of fun to have this guy lead the charge for our program.”