Paul Finebaum: Deion Sanders would be perfect replacement if USC fires Lincoln Riley

Paul Finebaum has made it clear that he believes this will be the last season for Lincoln Riley at USC. The ESPN analyst revealed Monday morning that he thinks he has found the perfect replacement for Riley in Colorado head coach Deion Sanders.

Finebaum spoke on ESPN First Take Monday morning about the USC job and why Sanders would be a great fit at Southern Cal.

“Instead of harping on Lincoln Riley, I decided to come up with a solution. I thought about this the other day. OK, maybe [Lincoln Riley] does well, maybe he doesn’t. But the answer is really moving forward, and I believe the answer after this season is Deion Sanders,” Paul Finebaum said. “He’s going to be tired of Colorado, because quite frankly it’s not prime time. He’s done as well as he can with his son and Travis Hunter and all the Stephen A. and Shannon Sharpe appearances. But that’s really going to dry up this year, because they’re not going to be that great.

“But you put Prime in Tinseltown, and I think you have one of the great combinations in history. … I think Deion Sanders as the coach at Southern Cal is the answer to the problems.”

USC is coming off of an 8-5 season in 2023, and Paul Finebaum believes Riley and the Trojans are in trouble as they head into the Big Ten. After getting off to a 6-0 start last season, USC was 1-5 in its final six regular season games.

“Quite frankly, had I been the Athletics Director at Southern Cal, I would’ve fired Lincoln Riley because he’s yet to show, after many years as a head coach, that he knows anything about defense,” Finebaum recently said. “He’s not going to the playoffs and he’s not going to survive Southern California. The Big Ten is going to eat him up. … The one thing LA hates is a loser, and right now, I think Lincoln Riley looks like a loser.”

Deion Sanders wasn’t exactly great in Year 1 at Colorado, going 4-8 and experiencing plenty of struggles of its own on defense. But Finebaum believes Coach Prime could turn that around at USC.

“Lincoln Riley is a good coach. He’s got a great resume. Deion Sanders just exudes exactly what that community is all about,” Finebaum said. “He takes the recruiting there, which Lincoln had and then lost. But I think he sustains it, especially now, today. The Big Ten Media Days is going on with Southern Cal. Can you imagine a year from today, Deion Sanders walks into Big Ten Media Days. Everybody else, get out of the way.”