Is Lincoln Riley long for USC?

Is Lincoln Riley really long for USC?  Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just asking.

Sure, on the surface it might seem weird to even ponder such a thought. Yes, the Trojans are down bad in 2023, but less than 12 months ago folks in Los Angeles were dubbing Riley the second coming of Pete Carrol. 

But the Trojans are down bad, and a lot has changed since Riley’s early Hollywood Honeymoon. With the loss to Utah on Saturday, Riley’s record at USC moved to 17-5 after 22 games — the same as his predecessor Clay Helton.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Riley said after rumors surfaced about him batting eyes toward the NFL. 

“We signed up to do this thing for a long time.”

Are we sure about that?

USC is a wholly unserious team in 2023, but the Trojans also look like a distracted program right now, too. There’s a malaise around USC, and something stinks.

Riley lost to Kyle Whittingham and the Utah Utes for the third time in two seasons Saturday, allowing an ex-Pig farmer (Bryson Barnes), a converted quarterback (tailback Ja’Quinden Jackson) and a two-way safety (Sione Vaki) to rack up nearly 500 yards of offense.

Once again, Alex Grinch’s defense proved to be the perfect antidote for Utah’s Zombie offense. But while USC’s defensive coordinator is an easy scapegoat, the Trojans’ defensive failings weren’t the only reason why they were embarrassed for the second straight Saturday.

They can’t tackle, cover or stop the run, but they don’t block or run an offense with any sort of rhythm or structure, either. And they have Caleb freaking Williams at quarterback. 

After a hot start, USC needed almost three full quarters to score a single touchdown. 

Unserious. 

Caleb Williams is full of emotion after the game pic.twitter.com/zaczFHzWxs

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 22, 2023

This is a program that entered the season with championship expectations — goals that were openly discussed by their head coach after Year 1 despite all his postgame gobbledygook excuses suggesting otherwise — that’s now more likely to play for the Alamo Bowl than the Pac-12 title. It’s gotten so bad that a TV analyst seriously called for Williams to call it quits and prepare for the NFL Draft. 

Riley’s teams have long been labeled soft, and he did nothing to dismiss that notion Saturday when he didn’t make any players available to the media postgame — something that local reporters said hasn’t happened in at least 20 years at USC.

For the first time in the 14 years I've been covering #USC, the school did not make any players available to speak with the media.@insidetroy said its the first time in his 20+ years that no players were made available to speak.

— Shotgun Spratling (@ShotgunSpr) October 22, 2023

Riley’s media policies have been controversial already this season, including when he bizarrely suspended a reporter over a benign nugget from a practice. 

These are signs of a head coach who is distracted. Who isn’t worrying about what’s actually important? 

“All the outside noise that comes with it, it can get to you. I think at times, it’s fair to say, it’s got to this team,” Riley said Saturday.

“I don’t think in a negative way but we’ve had to really fight the urge — I think we’ve had to fight to keep things on our own terms.”

Talk about tone-deaf. All there is in Los Angeles is noise. Lincoln Riley got a $100 million to leave Norman for that very limelight.

Instead, he and his team are cowering. 

Again I ask, are we sure Riley is long for USC? 

Will Lincoln Riley look under the hood and address what’s ailed his teams?

There have long been rumblings that Riley wasn’t thrilled with Oklahoma’s impending move to the SEC, which prompted his decision to leave one of the most stable programs in college football history for USC. 

Well, next season the Trojans are going to face nine Utah’s every week playing in the Big Ten. Oh, and without the Houdini services of Caleb Williams.

Are we sure he’s up for it?

USC is teetering right now. 

Riley inherited an Oklahoma program from Bob Stoops that was sitting on third base, but does he have a plan to build a sustainable program at USC?

They aren’t recruiting like it (No. 18 class nationally) right now. They don’t have a single commitment among the Top 10 players from California. And Riley has refused to change his philosophical approach to team-building (too reliant on transcendent quarterbacks, transfers), practice (tackling is optional) or strength and conditioning. 

He’s been a head coach for seven years, yet his teams have all had the same fatal flaw because he doesn’t believe defense is important. 

He says otherwise. But our eyes tell us no he doesn’t. 

So I’m not sure what happens next. Will Riley embrace change and adapt his program’s mentality and identity? Will he really look under the hood of what’s ailed his teams and have the blueprint to address it? 

“When you haven’t been in this position in a while, it takes time,” Riley said. 

“It’s gonna take some scars. It’s gonna take some tough lessons to learn. These are lessons that we couldn’t learn last year. It wasn’t like this. It didn’t feel like this. This is part of our progression. and it sucks, it kills you. But this program will be better for it. Because for the first time in a while, there are going to be championship expectations here, and those aren’t going anywhere.”

But is Riley? I’m just asking.