Lincoln Riley adds SEC coach to staff for USC Trojans

Lincoln Riley has made the latest addition to his coaching staff with the USC Trojans. According to Matt Zenitz of On3, Mississippi State’s inside wide receiver coach Dave Nichol will be making the move to Los Angeles. Steve Robertson of Gene’s Page was the first to report.

Riley and Nichol have worked together in the past, being on staff together at East Carolina and Texas Tech. Nichol comes from the Mike Leach coaching tree, working with the current Mississippi State head coach for the past six seasons.

Nichol served as the East Carolina offensive coordinator during the 2015 season before moving onto Washington State as the outside receivers coach. His experience within the Pac-12 will certainly help Riley who will be brand new to the conference with USC.

Riley has made a few other additions to his coaching staff over the past week, before national signing day. Matt Zenitz of On3 was the first to report that “the expectation” was for defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, co-OC/offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh and wide receivers coach Dennis Simmons would follow Riley from Oklahoma to USC.

Lincoln Riley reveals advantage at USC from Oklahoma tenure

While Riley may be new to the west coast as a coach, he is not unfamiliar with the territory. During his time as the head coach with the Oklahoma Sooners, he always recruited the area well, especially the state of California.

Riley talked about his comfort level of recruiting the west coast in an interview with Fox’s Joel Klatt. He said it was one of the Sooners’ highest success rates in signing kids and from a development standpoint.

“The respect for the talent out here, the respect for the way these guys are coached and developed out here — and there’s a comfort level recruiting out here,” Riley said, who had a history of dipping into Los Angeles’ football talent for recruiting at Oklahoma. “We’ve always had success recruiting in this area, recruiting on the west coast. I love the kids, not only recruiting them, but being able to bring them into our programs and develop. We’ve had a high success rate with not only signing them, but them becoming very successful and doing very well. So, it feels very comfortable.”

So far, two recruits from the state of California have followed Riley over to USC from California. On3 Consensus four-star 2022 running back Raleek Brown is one, while Five-Star Plus+ 2023 quarterback Malachi Nelson is the biggest name.