Lincoln Riley was anointed the savior of USC football. The man destined to restore greatness to a program once known for national championships and superstar NFL talent.
Yet while Riley contributes to the latter with players such as Jordan Addison and soon-to-be top NFL draft pick Caleb Williams, he’s failing to achieve the former by thinking that a great offense can win games.
As we’ve seen in his seven-year head coaching career, that’s a glaring falsehood.
Riley is a great offensive-minded coach who made the Oklahoma Sooners annual College Football Playoff contenders. During his five seasons in Norman (2017 – 2021), Riley led the team to three CFP appearances (2018, 2019, 2020) and top 5 AP rankings in all five seasons. His team also made five consecutive Bowl game appearances but he only went 1-3 in those games (he didn’t coach the team in the 2021 Alamo Bowl as he had taken the USC job).
At Oklahoma, he also produced back-to-back Heisman Trophy winners (Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray), seven All-Americans (Mark Andrews, Orlando Brown, CeeDee Lamb, Mayfield, Ben Powers, Tuli Tuipulotu, and Williams) and NFL stars such as Pro Bowler and Super Bowl runner up, Jalen Hurts.
But while his offenses were lighting up scoreboards, his defenses languished and never cracked the top 20.
During his five years with the Sooners, the team’s defense ranked 68th, 101st, 64th, 28th and 60th. That trend continues with the Trojans, as the team ranked 94th and 123rd in his first two years, respectively.
Keep in mind that there are only 133 FBS-ranked teams this season.
With all the hype surrounding Riley’s arrival in Southern Cal, Trojan fans expected big things, especially when Caleb Williams announced he was leaving Oklahoma to join his coach at USC. And in this era of offensive-focused football, Riley has delivered, giving fans and the game the great offensive schemes replete with the explosive talent and scoring they crave.
“This is exactly the type of buzz, energy and passion we need,” said USC AD Mike Bohn when Riley was hired. “I’m a big believer that energy wins. And we’ve got it right now.”
But that craving and energy should have been tempered by what Riley has continually failed to deliver- a complete, championship-winning team.
With what we’ve witnessed in the NFL with former coaches like Kliff Kingsbury and Josh McDaniels, some great offensive coordinators are ultimately just great offensive coordinators.
Now, Riley is a much better head coach than those two, but the overall result is the same. A failure to win the big games primarily because of porous defenses.
In Riley’s three CFP appearances, Oklahoma put up 48, 34 and 28 points. Those are great numbers, but when Georgia, Alabama and LSU put up 54, 45 and 63, respectively, those totals are essentially meaningless.
After losing to Oregon on Saturday, the Trojans’ championship aspirations have been vanquished. USC is 7-4 overall and 5-3 in the Pac-12 with one regular season game remaining against crosstown rival UCLA.
So after a second winning yet disappointing season under Riley, at what point does he get called out for what he is, a great offensive coordinator, and what he isn’t, a championship-winning coach?
It feels like the media has been reluctant to call out Riley because, despite his defensive shortcomings, he does have an impressive 73-17 overall head coaching record. For that, he deserves his props.
But after seven years of the same glaring weakness, it’s obvious that Riley has failed to address the one element that would change his future and that of his team and its fans.
For seven years, he has continually put up big points while failing to prevent his opponents from doing the same, which is why he is who he continues to be.
And for that, Lincoln Riley deserves to be called out.
