Stern Ultimatum for Lincoln Riley on $90M USC Future As Looming Consequences Force Damage Control

It’s fair to say that Lincoln Riley didn’t have the best of times in 2024. A 7-6 season is, of course, an obvious answer, but more than that, the QB whisperer lost his touch with the QBs. Miller Moss didn’t work after Caleb Williams hit the NFL. Adding to the woes, USC suffered a mass exodus, losing more than 19 players in the portal. Fingers have been raised toward coach Riley with veteran analysts, like Paul Finebaum, directly putting the question out there: why couldn’t USC move on from a good-for-nothing coach till now? What were they waiting for? Is it a whopping $90 million buyout or any other moral obligation?

The answer remains up in the air, but a national analyst comes up with a pointed solution for Riley to save his job.

Lincoln Riley received an ultimatum for a USC turnaround 

Riley has never been a Robinhood for USC and the Trojans. But he is also not the villain he is being tagged as right now. The beleaguered head coach has never lost more than five games in a year before 2024. But destiny really treated him worse this time. USC managed to clinch bowl eligibility but mounted six unforgivable losses. There have been a lot of issues that need to be addressed. You may call the faulty game calling a problem, or you may blame the line of scrimmage or a lack of depth chart for the misery, but largely, it lies on an incapable O-line and D-line as a whole.

Explaining the problem with a minute lens,

Spencer McLaughlin said, “I want to see ‘USC beef up their recruiting on the offensive line and along the defensive line. I want, in a couple of years, if they’re going to be a Big 10 Championship contender or if I want to see them that way, I want them to have stacked a couple of classes where you’re bringing in four and five-star offensive and defensive linemen.“

The need for a quality O-line can’t be exaggerated here. Miller Moss was dying every snap to make a throw. So many QB pressures that it became the only stat that mattered for the poor offensive outing of the Trojans. Spencer went into more detail to highlight the poor D-line performance.

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I mentioned the offensive line struggles in USC’s six losses this past year. Here are the rushing yards that they allowed only one time: under 100 yards, 290 (that was against Michigan), 193, 118, 56, 113, 258,… There is an anomaly in there, but over 250 yards twice and another over 190. You are the University of Southern California, so these should not happen, so that’s where I want them to get to.”

However, the analyst is not doubting Riley’s ability as a coach. That doesn’t mean he needs to do a better job on the recruiting front. 

”In the long run, I don’t worry about Lincoln Riley not being able to coach a quarterback or recruit good wide receivers or have capable running backs. They can do all that,’‘ the analyst dished a beam of hope. However, with all that being said and done, Riley is trying to make things up with a sophisticated justification after recruiting a new GM.

Riley tries to make up for a wasted season in a smooth speech

USC head coach said that he and all the Trojans out there carry lofty dreams for their program, and they can’t sleep at ease knowing they didn’t get there yet. It’s easier said than done. We all know, but Riley is being a bit politically correct here. He knows the consequences of his actions among every Trojan faithful and hence wants to put things in place before another hopeful season looms large.

After all those coaching and recruiting misfortunes or a lack of effort (whatever you may like to call it), Riley is resetting the standard. He tried to separate the coaching pool and the supporting staff, who are supposed to be responsible for recruiting, salary cap, and all other insider details. Riley brought Chad Bowman as the new general manager of the program and expects him to step up big for the recruitment hype, offering coaches a bit of relief so that they can exclusively focus on coaching and developing talents.

The witty USC coach said in a press meet shortly after the Chad Bowman move, ”

There is a big picture vision of what you want to do, but you can’t always do every single thing right away, but you know, I think it shows that we are not content with any part of this program being average or even being good; like that’s not our mentality. Every part of this program we are evaluating is not at a national championship level, and if not, is it trending that way quickly? If it’s not, we need to fix it.”

Is this a delusion he’s living on or a futile effort to ease up

the painted pressure on him? Whatever it is, the hypothetical collective reply to this would be, do fix it, fix it for the sake of you, for the sake of us!