It’s the middle of talking season, and USC stepped into the batter’s box at Big Ten media days on Wednesday. It was the first time Lincoln Riley had spoken publicly to reporters since the Trojans wrapped up spring practice in late April.
It’s a critical time in Riley’s tenure. USC is coming off a massively disappointing 2023 season in which it finished 8-5 overall and 5-4 in the Pac-12 after entering the season as the favorite to win the league. Riley hired a solid new defensive staff, but the Trojans have suffered several recruiting setbacks and fans continue to have reservations about the program’s NIL situation.
Here are some takeaways from what Riley said about the program and where things are currently situated.
1. One of the first questions posed to Riley during his 40-plus minute session was about the state of his rebuild and whether he believes it’s on schedule.
A year ago, this wouldn’t have been a topic of conversation. USC was well ahead of schedule after winning 11 games in Riley’s first year. But last season’s regression raised very real questions.
Entering the 2024 season, the Trojans aren’t expected to contend for a Big Ten championship or a spot in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. It’s essentially a reset year as USC moves forward without 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams and breaks in a new quarterback and a new defensive staff in a new conference home.
A reset isn’t what many would’ve had in mind for Riley in Year 3. Riley said the rebuild is “definitely not behind” and pointed to the fact the Trojans have won 19 games over the past two seasons after winning just four games in 2021. Riley also said they were able to be competitive quickly in some aspects, but he noted some things take time, like building facilities, stacking recruiting classes, etc.
Of course, the main question on the minds of USC fans who haven’t seen the program be a legitimate national championship threat since the mid-to-late 2000s: How much time will it take?
“We are certainly looking forward to competing for championships every year, and now it’s just Big Ten championships.
It’s a new conference, but the goal’s still the same for Lincoln Riley and @uscfb.#B1GFootball x #B1GMediaDays pic.twitter.com/uSdguEljEW
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) July 24, 2024
2. Riley has repeatedly said that he understood there would be ups and downs at USC when he took the job. He told The Athletic as much in an interview last November.
He was asked if rebuilding the program has been more tedious than expected.
“Has my patience been tested on it? Hell yeah. No doubt. Every day,” he said. “But my resolve hasn’t been tested. My commitment to being here hasn’t been tested. I know this is the right place. I know what this is going to be. … Whether the day goes perfectly the way you want it or something goes wrong that day, I don’t ever leave that day discouraged because there’s just a bigger picture to what we’re building here and I’m really focused on that. And I’m really confident in what we’re doing and that we’re doing it at the right place.”
3. Riley was also asked if the Trojans are playing catch-up with other blue blood programs.
“We are playing catch-up,” he said. “We’re playing catch-up in facilities. We’re playing catch-up in NIL. We’ve been playing catch-up in resources within the program. We’ve been playing catch-up in damn near every way that you can think of, but when we catch up — and we are going to catch up — that’s when the things that this place has that others don’t, shows up again. And it’s coming.”
To be fair, USC was a mess when Riley took over. When the job opened, I wrote that the rebuild would be tougher than most expected. So the program has had to play catch-up. But at the same, Riley has had two full recruiting classes, and a majority of the Clay Helton holdovers have been processed out of the program. He has had time to mold the program how he’s seen fit.
The Trojans are in better shape now than when he took over, but with Riley as coach (and at his salary), expectations have been elevated.
4. It’s been well-documented that USC is playing catch-up in the NIL space — a source of frustration for Trojans fans, who aren’t happy about recruiting setbacks in the transfer portal or on the high school front.
As I’ve written in the past, USC isn’t in the Oregon, Ohio State, Texas or Miami tier when it comes to NIL. It’s not operating at its peak and has to improve, but USC has made strides.
In a scrum with local reporters, Riley said: “Our collective is probably the most improved collective in the country and continues to improve. Honestly, not too concerned about what everybody else is doing.”
Later in the day, Riley said USC has “an incredible NIL program right now. Now it just has to continue to grow and gain momentum and catch up from the head start some of these other places had on us.”
So make of that what you will.
5. Dave Emerick, USC’s general manager, has become a lightning rod on social media and message boards for the program’s recruiting issues. Riley was asked about Emerick, who he’s known since their time together at Texas Tech under Mike Leach.
“I think Dave’s done a really good job. He’s worked hand in hand with our collective,” Riley said. “Our collective has made a massive jump, starting from 0.00 when we got there to now. He’s done a great job with that. Dave played a prominent role in hiring this defensive staff that everybody’s giddy about right now and has helped us put together that group and has done an outstanding job.”
But Riley also noted that Emerick’s role “is going to evolve going forward along with the rest of that department for us” as the program prepares for revenue sharing, potential salary caps and everything else that will be involved in the new recruiting world.
6. At different times this spring, Riley mentioned that USC had immediate needs along the offensive and defensive lines that he hoped to address in the transfer portal. For one reason or another, the Trojans added just one defensive line transfer — Gavin Meyer from Wyoming — and didn’t add an offensive lineman.
There are some serious concerns about depth on both sides of the line, particularly on offense, but when speaking to a scrum of local beat writers, Riley said, “We’re not completely done yet” about roster moves for the 2024 season.
On Wednesday evening, The Santa Maria Times reported that two-way lineman Erwin Taomi out of Hancock (Calif.) College signed with USC and quoted him saying he intends to report to campus this weekend.
7. There has been a lot of offseason discussion about USC’s nonconference scheduling moving forward and what the best approach is. I’ve written about it some, too.
The Trojans are in a unique spot because they play Notre Dame every year. That’s a marquee game for most programs. This year, USC has Notre Dame and LSU. The incentive to play games like the one against LSU in the future is low since Notre Dame is still on the schedule and the Trojans’ league slate is tougher in the Big Ten.
USC’s contract with Notre Dame runs through 2026. The series started in 1926 and has been interrupted only by World War II and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Riley was asked about the future of the series.
“I would love to (keep it),” he said. “The purist in you, no doubt. Now if you get in a position where you’ve got to make a decision on what’s best for SC to help us win a national championship versus keeping that? Shoot, then you’ve got to look at it.”
It would be a tough political move for USC to move off of that series. The compromise is probably fewer games like LSU, and we’ve already seen USC and Ole Miss cancel their home-and-home series that was slated to start next year.
“Bama was ahead of the curve for years, I thought, on how they scheduled the nonconference,” Riley said. “They would occasionally hit the marquee nonconference game. They played two other not-very-good teams and they played one late so they essentially got a little bye week right there late in the season. … They didn’t schedule for their fans. They scheduled to win championships. My hope is we can do the best thing — schedule to win championships — and that includes a rivalry game for all that comes with that and all that it means. But if you get in those positions, you’ve got to make a decision on what the priority is.”
USC has a hole in its schedule for 2025. It will be interesting to see how the program fills it.
(Photo of Lincoln Riley: Robert Goddin / USA Today)
