Paul Finebaum blasts Lincoln Riley for 'magician' comment: 'You’re an average football coach'

Paul Finebaum didn’t hold back on Lincoln Riley Thursday, calling the USC Trojans leader an “average coach.”

Ouch. The criticism from the ESPN commentator regarding Riley ramped up in the last week as USC, and three other schools, began their tenures in the Big Ten.

Riley, who goes into Year 3 at USC, has been successful as well as three College Football Playoff appearances at Oklahoma. But Finebaum wants championships.

“What he is and what he sounds like, Molly, is a slick politician,” Finebaum said on First Take. “He’s just telling people what he thinks they should hear as opposed to ‘Hey, this is on me. Hey, I’m the one who decided for what reason I don’t know, to stick with a defensive coordinator who was done, but let’s go with him one more year with the best player in college football and make a bigger mess out of the situation.’

“Yeah, you can go back to two years ago and yeah, he was one game out of the playoffs, but he didn’t make it. He’s at Southern Cal, that this is not Slippery Rock. You don’t get a participation trophy for almost making it at Southern Cal.” 

Riley is 19-8 in two seasons at USC, making it to the Pac-12 title game his first year. He’s 74-18 overall with four conference titles at Oklahoma to go along with those three CFP appearances.

But the talk and hype around Riley is beyond Finebaum at this point.

“And I just find him to be tiresome,” Riley said. “I don’t think he’s an elite coach anyway. I think he’s benefited from Bob Stoops leaving him a great program. Oh, yeah, he won a couple of Heisman trophies with transfers. Good for him. He brought Caleb Williams, great. But championships are what this is about. He hasn’t won one and I don’t see them getting any closer now that you mentioned the schedule. It could be a lot worse. 

“They don’t have Ohio State, I don’t believe they have Oregon, but they’re still going to lose the big games. They’re still going to get upset by someone they’re not supposed to. And they’re still going to miss the playoffs. And next year at this time if Lincoln Riley is still there, he’ll be saying ‘Listen, I’m not a magician.’ No, you’re not, you’re an average football coach.”

The average moniker might be up for debate. But one thing’s for sure, Riley is under a lot of pressure going into 2024.