Lincoln Riley addresses recruiting strategy as USC head coach

Lincoln Riley took the college football world by storm this week, when he left a very stable job at Oklahoma for a far less stable one at USC. Sure, USC has a history of winning at the biggest stage, perhaps even a greater history than that of Oklahoma. But turning around the USC Trojans will be no easy task.

USC has struggled in recent years. The Trojans have not eclipsed eight wins since 2017, when they went 11-3, and their last season with 12 or more victories came in Pete Carroll’s penultimate season at the helm in 2008. It’ll take some rebuilding, but Riley thinks the potential is there, given both the prestige of the program and the investment from the USC brass.

Riley also comes to USC with some valuable experience at Oklahoma. He made it to the College Football Playoff in three of the last four years at the helm of the Sooners, and though they never won the national championship, the experience of building a winning culture can certainly translate to the west coast. But perhaps most importantly, of all things he could bring with him, Riley brought Oklahoma’s verbal commits. He has basically turned around USC’s program immediately, flipping a number of former Oklahoma commits, some of whom are from California to begin with, to the Trojans.

“The respect for the talent out here, the respect for the way these guys are coached and developed out here — and there’s a comfort level recruiting out here,” Riley said, who had a history of dipping into Los Angeles’ football talent for recruiting at Oklahoma. “We’ve always had success recruiting in this area, recruiting on the west coast. I love the kids, not only recruiting them, but being able to bring them into our programs and develop. We’ve had a high success rate with not only signing them, but them becoming very successful and doing very well. So, it feels very comfortable.”

Riley’s level of comfort with the Los Angeles recruiting scene will only help his case at USC. Plus, his track record of Los Angeles players at Oklahoma will only help his case.

“The thing for us is we can’t expect these guys to come here just because it’s USC,” Riley said. “Being USC is a starting point, but they need to see the progress, they need to see what we saw, what caused us to want to come out here. The investment, the belief and the hunger to get this program back to where it rightfully should be. It’s a process to get that done. I think a lot of that falls on the staff. A lot of that falls on the people that support this program to continue to invest and continue to push, and these guys are going to see that. And again, that’s why this decision was so right for us. We felt that. We felt that future for these guys as well.”