Lincoln Riley reacts to positives, negatives of spring transfer window
With the Spring Transfer Portal window about to open, USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley shared that he doesn’t know if he’s experienced it enough to know if he likes it or not yet. However, he does see both positives and negatives within the window.
One of the frustrations that Riley has with the portal is when the team invests time in developing a player, only for them to leave.
“I don’t know that we’ve had it long enough for me to say,” Lincoln Riley said. “I mean, what you don’t love is you go through Spring ball and invest in some of these reps in people and then they don’t play for you in the Fall. I don’t love that piece of it, although that’s not going to be a huge part of your roster. There’s always going to be a couple outliers.”
The bigger thing for Lincoln Riley has become having a team that loves playing for the school. When the core is like that, then the team should stay relatively intact.
“We got a lot of dudes on this team right now that love SC, that love this team, that are as completely committed as they possibly could be and we’re not going to let the actions of a few sour us or deject us in any way. It’s part of it. If we lose a couple of guys then we’ll replace them. But the large amount of this team feels that way,” Riley said.
“So, I don’t know my personal feelings. Probably like anything, there’s some positives and negatives to both but it’s something that it’s part of the rules right now. It’s just something that we’ve got to deal with.”
Following the Winter Transfer Portal window, USC had the 32nd-ranked transfer class in the 2024 cycle, according to the On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings. That included 21 players transferring out and 11 coming into the program.
Now, the question becomes how a roster stays disciplined with things like NIL and the Transfer Portal. For Lincoln Riley, it comes down to doing your best to bring in the right people.
“I think it comes down to the people that you bring into your program in the first place and the scenario in which they come into your program. If you bring a million question marks into that, you’re probably gonna have a million issues at that time. You’re never gonna be 100 percent, especially in the Transfer Portal age. Some of these kids really don’t — you try to get to know them as fast as you can, but this happens so quickly that some of it you’re gonna learn a little bit on the run.”
During his time at USC, Lincoln Riley has brought in some big names through the Transfer Portal. That includes players like Caleb Williams, Jordan Addison, and Bear Alexander. However, the goal is to become less reliant on it over time.
“We’ve been right a whole lot more in the portal than we’ve been wrong but we’ve had some that if we had a chance to go back and do it again that we wouldn’t have made those mistakes, but that’s obviously part of the reason why our climb and aim is to get less and less reliant on it as we continue to build this roster from the inside out and use it just a little bit more as on an as needed basis. We’re getting closer and closer to that every year.”
The Transfer Portal will open on Monday, April 15th. It’s a 15-day window for players to enter the portal.