As USC Trojans’ playoff dreams crashed, HC Lincoln Riley had his Plan B ready. After all, the clock is ticking off with an early signing period that is less than a month away. And who inspired Riley to dedicate to a new journey? Of course, the Michigan Wolverines HC Sherrone Moore is all about aiming for the bigger prizes (read: recruits). But being a debut HC, even though things might look hard for Moore, he has time in his hands. However, sadly, that’s not the case for Riley, who now walks on thin ice.   

Being the defending champions last season, it has been hard for the Wolverines to not make it to the playoffs. But Moore is in no mood to waste his time on what he has not got. Instead, he has dedicated himself to pushing Michigan to the top-5 class in the recruiting race as they now sit at No.10. Maybe Riley got too inspired with Moore’s endeavor and he too now dedicates himself to a recruiting mission for the 2025 cycle. Good news for the Trojans fans, your HC has got an idea of where to hit in the race.

USC has been thin on the defensive front as Riley shared, “I don’t know there’s any position that we spend more time recruiting on than guys on the defensive front because we know how important they are to any football team.” Right now, his squad is the No.17th ranked recruiting class in 2024. And on the defensive front, they have three commitments, edge rusher Hayden Lowe (CA), defensive lineman Floyd Boucard (FL), and defensive end Gus Cordova (TX) whose signs they are yet to land before the conference championship games on Dec. 4. What about the quarterbacks?

Well, the Julian Lewis hoopla is known to all. Even giving his words to the Trojans, the 5-star QB has already made up his mind to join Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes. While Riley’s JuJu mission is not yet over, they have already lost the 4-star QB recruit Helaman Casuaga to Texas A&M after narrowing his list to USC. So even if their luck favors them, will Lewis commit to USC given Riley’s wobbly job status?

Lincoln Rley’s job approval numbers take a dive 

With Riley at the helm, after their disastrous loss against Washington Huskies, the USC now sits with a losing record of 4-5. And it’s quite natural. As contagious as hate is coming from defeats, the HC is now in the hot seat. The CFB analyst Josh Pate dropped in with the figures to show how things are going to be an uphill ride for Riley from now on. 

According to Pate, “The Lincoln Riley job approval numbers are troubling sitting around 55% approval rating right now.” Yes, we know how it’s an injustice to the HC since not everything depends on the coach, and the players too, play a great role. But in this case, we can be extremely sure of Riley’s contribution to how low the Trojans stooped. After all, it has been a rollercoaster ride ever since he stepped into Bobby Stoops’ role.

In his debut year, USC was at 4-18, a year later, they went 11-3 but again dipped to 8-5. That’s when Lincoln Riley thought of doing something rebellious by showing the exit door to everyone on the defensive staff. Till that was okay. But what followed was even more alarming when he hired Alex Grinch as the defensive coordinator. And with this, the Trojans’ defense dipped to the worst rank in the country. So what’s Riley’s Hail Mary right now? Betting the house on freshman. 

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