Urban Meyer claims there is 'no chance' USC fires Lincoln Riley

The college football coaching carousel is already spinning rather rapidly this season, and more could join it soon. Could USC coach Lincoln Riley be on the chopping block?

USC has been on a downward trajectory since Riley won 11 games in his first season in 2022. And while this year’s team is likely to eclipse last year’s seven-win total and reverse that trend, the College Football Playoff is a long shot following a loss to Notre Dame.

Still, former coach and current FOX Sports analyst Urban Meyer doesn’t see Riley going anywhere this offseason. He was emphatic about that on The Triple Option podcast.

“No chance,” Meyer said. “No chance. No chance.”

Meyer was then reminded by his co-hosts on the show, Rob Stone and former Alabama running back Mark Ingram, that they had felt the same way about James Franklin at Penn State. He was unceremoniously dumped after a third loss this year.

“You’re right,” Meyer said. “OK, we presented the picture, but now let’s go deep. Like I said, I can probably do this better than most. All right, you make a decision. You make a decision, you go back in your office. You have a Rolodex on your phone now; it used to be a Rolodex. Do you start calling the Bs, the billionaires, or the hundreds of millionaires, and say, ‘All right, here we go, I’m going to make a decision. I need a check for $20 (million).’

“Is that? I don’t know this. I’m trying to think, what in the hell do you do? I need $70 million, there’s not a line item on the… you know, there’s budgets. You’ve got revenue and you’ve got expenses, and I think that’s economics 101. When there’s a line item that doesn’t show up and all the sudden it’s got a bunch of zeros behind it, eight figures behind it, is that a phone call to a person? Here’s the phone call, we have to make this change.”

Of course, Meyer’s pushback came on the same podcast episode where he admitted he has been wrong about NIL and the current financial obligations programs face, making schools less likely to fire coaches. And he has not just been wrong on that, he’s been very wrong.

Earlier this season, Meyer stated his case on that front. He was convinced programs weren’t going to be in the habit of paying big buyouts, like the one that would presumably be owed to Lincoln Riley.

“Actually, Colin Cowherd brought this up to me,” Meyer said. “We were talking one day on air on The Herd, and he said, and I’ve done some research on this, he said that you’re going to see the end of the big buyouts. People are going to stick with coaches longer. …

“There are only so many — it’s a finite number. Money. It used to be kind of infinite because of television contracts. Your labor or your players were getting nothing. Then what would you do? They’d pay the coaches an astronomical amount of money, and then with all these millions left, they’d go build these locker rooms. So, I think the era of buyouts and the era of new facilities going up every three or four years are gone. Now, that money is going to whom? And I’m not saying it’s wrong, but that’s where it’s going. It’s going to the players.”

A couple of weeks later, he used a similar argument to make the case that Florida was not going to fire Billy Napier due to his buyout. His buyout was in the range of $21 million. Could Riley play out similarly?

“Billy Napier is caught in a firestorm. How’s it end?” Meyer said. “Again, I don’t see them making the change right now with $21 million (owed). And that’s going on pretty well-documented conversation with people throughout the country that there’s, once again, where does it go? Where you getting that money from?

“Because the money’s already distributed. The money’s accounted for.”

If recent history is any indication, Riley probably shouldn’t feel too safe out West. Meyer’s predictions on the buyout and firing front have mostly not panned out this season.