Lincoln Riley shares USC plan for targeting the NCAA transfer portal

The transfer portal has drastically increased the difficulty of roster management for college football coaches across the country and USC head coach Lincoln Riley is a prime example of that. In Friday’s Early Signing Day press conference, he talked about how he plans to utilize the portal going forward.

“I would say this on the transfer portal,” Riley said. “There’s not any position that we wouldn’t consider right now. I just think when you’re in a position we’re in. You’re talking that we may overhaul thirty-five, if not even more spots on this roster. That’s a huge overhaul. When you figure a travel college roster it’s seventy.

“I mean, it’s major. Obviously, the transfer portal is gonna be a part of it, there’s no question about it. We’ll have a lot of the same mindset with the transfer portal, in terms of making sure we’re bringing in guys that are right for the culture, along with guys that can make a difference on the field. But, we’ll continue to have a lot of interest there.”

Riley’s comments above are telling of just how incredibly difficult roster management has become for coaches across college football. With the current transfer portal rules set up the way they are, the turnover rate is bound to be incredibly high year-to-year.

“We’ll set our standards high and we won’t compromise those. But yeah, to sit here right now today and say that we would have a position that we wouldn’t look at it, I couldn’t say that. I would say that we’re open for business on all accounts,” the newly anointed USC head coach said.

A brief look at the USC offense

One place Riley isn’t going to need to look for talent from the portal is the quarterback position, where he’ll return former five-star signal-caller, Jaxson Dart. While Dart struggled a bit at times as a true freshman, he also showed flashes of his immense potential that earned him five-star status from On3 coming out of Corner Canyon (Draper, Utah).

In his debut for the Trojans, he threw for 391 passing yards, while tossing in four touchdowns and two interceptions in a 45-14 comeback victory over Washington State.

Dart will have to battle former four-star Miller Moss for the starting job at USC to open up the Lincoln Riley era in the 2022 season. The way Riley sounded in his press conference, who knows, maybe he’ll bring in another quarterback from the transfer portal. He sounds like everybody is under evaluation.

One player Riley and the Trojans will greatly miss is former USC wide receiver Drake London, who announced a few weeks ago that he was declaring for the 2022 NFL Draft. Potential first-round talents like London simply do not grow on trees.

However, Riley did reel in a talented receiver for the Trojans who was committed to him with the Oklahoma Sooners. Raleek Brown out of Mater Dei (Santa Ana, California) is currently rated as the 57th player nationally, according to the On3 Consensus Rankings.

Brown is rated as a four-star prospect by On3. Riley and the Trojans coaching staff hope he can inject some juice the Trojans’ passing attack in the coming years.

With so many players coming and going throughout the next several months, it will be interesting to see the Trojans roster take shape and what type of players he brings in for USC.