Lincoln Riley confirms interim inside WRs coach Luke Huard to stay in role

Lincoln Riley said Tuesday that he expects no changes to his coaching staff this offseason.

The headline from that comment was the return of embattled defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, but it also means that interim inside receivers coach Luke Huard is going to remain on staff full-time, Riley confirmed.

Huard joined the Trojans last February as an offensive analyst but was quickly asked to step into a larger role after the tragic passing of newly-hired assistant coach Dave Nichol, who died of cancer last March.

"He's been awesome for us," Riley said Tuesday. "I mean, yeah, what a tough situation for him to come into. And he was in a situation at Texas A&M that was a good situation, and he was, you know, had I think a lot of responsibility, big responsibility there. So I don't think it was a necessarily an easy situation to walk away from here and, you know, come work with a guy that you never really even knew. And he was fantastic for us."

Huard had spent the previous three seasons as an offensive analyst at Texas A&M, after serving as the co-offensive coordinator/QBs coach at Sacramento State for two seasons, the OC/QBs coach at Georgia State for four years and the OC/QBs coach at Illinois State for three seasons (plus an earlier year as just the QBs coach there).

He is the brother of former NFL QBs Damon and Brock Huard.

Riley had Huard up in the press box during games as his eye on things from above.

"He did a good job in the box for me this year. I thought his guys developed. Really, we point at Tahj Washington I think was one of the guys on the team that maybe developed as much as anybody on the roster from ... like spring to becoming probably our most consistent and maybe best player on the perimeter this year," Riley said. "And he obviously had an impact on special teams, so Luke did a really good job and he's meshed well with our staff, he's recruited well.

"Yes, I do, the plan is for him to be the full-time inside receivers coach going forward."

Washington finished second on the Trojans with 50 catches for 785 yards and 6 touchdowns.

The Trojans have two receivers coach as Dennis Simmons is officially the outside receivers coach, but both end up working with the full WR unit in some capacity during practices.

Riley spoke about the importance of having continuity on the coaching staff when he feels he has the right combination of coaches in place.

"Continuity in this game, one, it's hard to have, it's especially hard to have at places like this because there's rarely much middle ground. The expectations are high -- I had this at my previous place too -- the expectations are high and if you do well, guys are going to get great opportunities and I think we always want to set our guys up for upward mobility," he said. "We're going to have that. We're going to have guys that leave here for big coordinator jobs and head coaching jobs. It may happen here in the next few days. Right now, sitting here today, I don't anticipate any major staff changes, but in this day and age that can obviously change quickly.

"But I think for us, the idea to have continuity, just us together, us with our players, us in this setting, this school kind of knowing what we want to build is important."