Lincoln Riley: USC has been playing catch up 'in damn near every way'

Lincoln Riley leads one of the premier brands in all of college football in the USC Trojans. Still, even they out in Hollywood are having to better keep up with the changing landscape of the sport in order to better compete.

Riley spoke about his program’s adjustment to the aspects of this next era during his appearance while at Big Ten Media Days from Indianapolis on Wednesday. He noted how USC is absolutely having to better their pace in order to be where they need to be from the standpoint of finances and assets.

“Oh, for sure,” said Riley. “We are playing catch up. Like, we’re playing catch up in facilities. We’re playing catch up in NIL. We’ve been playing catch up in resources within the program.”

“We’ve been playing catch up in damn never every way you can think of,” Riley said.

USC finds itself in an interesting position going into 2024.

On one hand, the Trojans, again, are a well-known name as the collegiate level with the history that has taken place in Los Angeles. We’re talking about nine national titles, 39 league titles, and 777 all-time wins over the course of more than a century there. That’s not including the individual accolades as well, which namely means the eight separate winners of The Heisman Trophy.

On the other, though, USC isn’t necessarily in as advantageous a spot as they once were. That definitely comes with Riley having lost eight games in his two years, albeit as part of a winning rate at just over 70%, in trying to bring them back to what they once were. That’ll now only be more difficult with them realigning to their new conference in the Big Ten.

Still, any team, specifically one with a spotlight like USC, can keep up in this day and age with the right capital behind it. The competition better hope that day never comes for the Trojans either according to Riley.

“When we catch up? And we are going to catch up. That’s when the things that this place has that others don’t shows up,” said Riley. “It’s coming.”

It sounds and is certainly so that Riley and the Trojans have work to do. It just might not be as much as others think in trying to bring excellence back to USC.

Riley calls USC’s NIL operation ‘most improved’ in country

Lincoln Riley is ready to take on the Big Ten.

Riley is not worried about the Trojans’ war chest. He believes USC has made progress in all areas on and off the field, including with its collective.

“I’m not a magician,” Riley said Wednesday at Big Ten Media Days. “I can’t wave a magic wand and everything is just perfect right away. But find one area that we haven’t made progress. This thing’s got momentum. It’s coming. Nothing’s going to stop it. That’s fine. They started at a different point. We’ll see where it ends up.”

“Our collective is probably the most improved collective in the country and continues to improve,” Riley said. “Honestly, not too concerned about what everybody else has done.”