Lincoln Riley has faith in his plan for USC football program

This year’s coaching carousel in college football will be remembered for a very long time. One of the biggest moves over the last couple of weeks was Lincoln Riley leaving Oklahoma to become the next head coach of the USC Trojans. The move sent shockwaves throughout the nation. As Riley takes over the USC program, he is confident in his plan he’s putting into place.

“That’s the plan. I mean I think we’ll certainly have to adapt to the players on the roster that we have here,” Riley said on his plan for USC. “We’ve had a lot of success in what we do and we believe in that. We’ll continue to develop and move as the game does, but yeah I mean I think it’s rebuilding a roster. I think it’s bringing in a great staff. I think it’s going to work and putting together a team that this entire LA area, all the Trojan family can be very proud of.

“Being in that stadium yesterday, being in the Coliseum doing the press conference, you kind of look down there and imagine. I haven’t been there on Saturday night, I haven’t been there when that place is full an dis electric. So we’ve got to do our part to create that. But it’s going to be a great journey.”

Riley is one of the great young minds in college football, and now he has a massive opportunity in front of him. He now gets to be closer to the strong recruiting base in the state of California, and he has one of the top jobs in college football to sell. If Riley can continue to bring in strong recruits, his plan might be coming into play even quicker than anybody expects it to.

USC is happy to have gotten Riley

In five seasons at Oklahoma, Riley led the Sooners to a 55-10 overall record, including a 37-7 mark against Big 12 opponents. He was just 1-3 in bowl games, though. Oklahoma was 10-2 this season, missing the Big 12 Championship game for the first time since 2017.

Riley has a plan for USC, and USC athletic director Mike Bohn had one as well when he targeted Riley. Bohn is excited to have been able to pull off one of the biggest moves across college football in recent memory.

“It was never our goal to change the landscape of college football with one of the biggest moves in the history of the game, but we did exactly that,” Bohn said at Riley’s introductory press conference on Monday.