Lincoln Riley remembers Dave Nichol's incredible impact and importance

There is little doubt assistant coach Dave Nichol would have turned into a favorite among fans, players, staff and anyone else related to the Trojans during his USC tenure. The longtime coach and mentor made a habit of that at all of his previous stops. USC fans were familiar with his work at Arizona and Washington State. But they unfortunately won’t get to witness Nichol work with the Trojans following the devastating news Friday that the longtime coach passed away following what had been described by USC as a “private medical matter.”

Nichol’s passing hit USC head coach Lincoln Riley hard. In his initial comments on Twitter reacting to Nichol’s passing, Riley said, “My heart is broken.”

Nichol and Riley overlapped twice in their careers. The first time was at Texas Tech. Riley walked on as a quarterback for the Red Raiders in 2003 under head coach Mike Leach. Nichol was on staff as an offensive graduate assistant. Riley became a student assistant later that year. The two then spent the 2012-2014 seasons together at East Carolina. Nichol was the outside receivers coach while Riley served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. When Riley went to Oklahoma for the 2015 season, Nichol stepped in as OC and QB coach for the Pirates.

My heart is broken.

I met Dave Nichol in 2002. He gave me my shot to be a college player and coach. Taught me everything. Safe to say I wouldn’t be here today without Dave.

1 of the best/most unselfish people ever. Love you & miss you brother-

RIP🙏 pic.twitter.com/Arb3bFMO0J

— Lincoln Riley (@LincolnRiley) March 26, 2022

On Saturday, Riley spoke to the media following USC’s third spring ball practice. He was asked about the impact Nichol had on his coaching career. Riley spoke at length, offering a full tribute to the kind of person Nichol was.

“There’s a strong possibility I wouldn’t be in college coaching without him, in a lot of ways,” Riley said. “He was really the one that gave me my first shot to walk on at Texas Tech when he was an offensive assistant there. And when I got into the coaching side of it, he was really the one, when I was a student assistant and didn’t know anything about anything, he was kind of the guy that guided me, kind of led me, kind of taught me how to become a coach. He taught me the offense when I was a player. As a walk-on quarterback coming in, you’re fighting, scrapping, clawing, trying to learn anything you can. I probably bugged him to death those early years trying to learn it all.

“And he was just great to me the whole time,” Riley continued. “And that was kind of him. Anybody that knew him, Dave was one of those people. He didn’t care. Like where you’re from. He didn’t care your rank in the organization. He treated the head coach the same way he treated some first-day walk. That was just him. He was just a really good person to all people and I certainly benefited from that early in our time and we had a great relationship through the years.

“This business is hard to get into,” Riley said. “So I look back on it now and think, man, had Dave not taken a vested interest in some no-name walk-on coming in there, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. So myself, my family I mean, we really owe everything to the guy.”

Nichol Tributes from the Trojans

Riley said USC will have a few things this season to honor Nichol. The inside receivers coach and associate head coach for offense wasn’t with the Trojans long. Reports of his expecting hiring came out in early December. But he’d already made a big impression. Riley said they were able to inform the team of his passing on Friday afternoon.

“As you can imagine, a lot of emotion with the guys,” Riley said. “I told the players the other day, I’d go home at night the last couple of weeks when he wasn’t feeling too good. He didn’t want to talk about none of that. All he wanted to talk about was how the guys were doing, how’s install going, how are walkthroughs. He’s Zooming into everything we did. That just shows you kind of who he was. He loved ball.”

Riley said Nichol “loved ‘SC” and that it was a dream for Nichol to be able to coach for the Trojans.

“We’ll certainly have a few things with our football program to honor Dave and his legacy and his memory as we go forward,” Riley said.

An Easy Call for Riley

Riley took over as USC head coach with an introductory press conference on November 29. While some coaching positions on the staff seemed to take a long time to materialize, reports of Nichol’s hiring began on December 3. Riley said it was a no-brainer to bring him to USC.

“He was always a guy that I wanted to work with,” Riley said. “And then with his experience on the West Coast, when we decided to take this job at ‘SC, I knew from second one that I was going to try to hire him. He’s just one of those guys in the business that knew our stuff inside and out. And you could just trust him so much as a coahc. He was always going to get his job done. he was always going to put the team first. And he was always going to get along with every single person in the staff building. He was just the epitome of a great coach and a great person.”