Lincoln Riley's first USC staff built largely on relationships and trust

So it didn't take much deliberation, he says, in choosing to show up for that pre-dawn flight from Norman, Okla., to Los Angeles a little more than two months ago after Riley shocked the college football world by taking the Trojans job.

Less than 36 hours after the end of Oklahoma's regular-season, Riley and his family boarded a private plane with USC administrators early that Monday morning, joined by Simmons -- the Trojans' new outside receivers coach -- defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, director of football operations Clarke Stroud and strength coach Bennie Wylie.

The core of Riley's first USC staff would start with the men he had utmost trust and confidence in from their experiences together.

As Riley said back on that Monday, during his introductory press conference later in the day, "These guys got on the plane with me this morning without a contract, without anything. I called them and said, 'Do you want to come?' And they said, 'Yep.' I said, 'All right, plane leaves at 6 a.m.' They were there at 5:40."

For Simmons, he said there was nothing really to think about.

"The friendship and the brotherhood that Lincoln and I share is one of a very strong bond. So when he called, there really wasn't much more discussion that was needed. 'Hey, this is what I'm doing, I need you there.' So it was like, 'What time and where?'" Simmons recalls, echoing Riley's story.

But surely there had to be some surprise on Simmons' end, though, right?

The news of Riley's hiring broke early the day after Oklahoma's loss to rival Oklahoma State, and less than a half day after the announcement Simmons and the others were at a regional airport headed for a new life halfway across the country? Just like that?

"Yeah, I ain't going to lie, I was shocked. I was extremely shocked," Simmons acknowledged. "[But] that relationship started, I mean, Lincoln and I have known each other since he was 19 years old. We've gone through weddings together, we've gone through the birth of various kids together. ...

"You kind of create that friendship and that brotherly bond. I mean, the respect we both have for each other as men and sharing the same values and views has only made that bond stronger."

For Riley and Grinch, the connection is only a few years deep, but strong enough that the Trojans' new defensive coordinator also gave Riley an immediate yes.

"When you see the inner workings, when you have the opportunity to be under elite leadership as an assistant coach, that's very rare in this business," Grinch said of how he too made such a quick decision to follow Riley to L.A.. "To be under elite leadership and at elite institutions, now all of a sudden that is opportunities that you don't want to pass up."

That continuity -- which extends even deeper on the defensive side between Grinch and a couple other new USC assistants -- will be key in establishing the standards now expected within this program and installing the schemes on both sides of the ball.

Simmons is the only Oklahoma holdover on the offensive side, but he carries the additional title of assistant head coach and will be integral in trying to transfer over what has been one of the most proficient offensive systems in college football the last seven years.

As he alluded to, Simmons was at Texas Tech as an assistant athletic director/quality control staffer when Riley first got to Lubbock, transitioning from walk-on QB to student assistant. By the time Riley was promoted to graduate assistant and later the Red Raiders' receivers coach, Simmons was head coach Mike Leach's chief of staff and then the outside receivers coach, shifting Riley's responsibility to the inside receivers.

They then moved on together to East Carolina, with Riley as the offensive coordinator and Simmons coaching the outsider receivers. After three years apart with Simmons moving on to Washington State, they'd reconnect the last seven seasons at Oklahoma, the first two with Riley as OC and the last five as head coach.

Inside receivers coach Dave Nichol, who also holds the title of associate head coach for offense, was most recently at Mississippi State, but he coached under Riley for three seasons at East Carolina, effectively replacing Simmons there.

Nichol wasn't available for the press conference with the coaches last week, but his hiring fits the same mold to a degree.

"When you've gone through transition and job locations together ... I think throughout that time it creates a brotherhood, it creates a bond much like with our players in the locker room going through offseason conditioning, going through summer workouts," Simmons said.

A bond and a trust.

Just as can be seen in USC's defensive hires ...

Grinch served as Riley's defensive coordinator at Oklahoma the past three seasons, where they both worked with new USC outside linebackers/nickels coach Roy Manning and inside linebackers coach Brian Odom.

But the connection threads deeper than that.

Manning was the outside linebackers coach at Washington State all three seasons Grinch served as the DC there from 2015-17, and Odom was a defensive quality control assistant there for two of those seasons and also overlapped with Grinch early in their respective careers.

"Alex and I actually GA’d together for a short time at the University of Missouri back in '04, '05, can’t remember. Went our separate ways. He got the Washington State defensive coordinator job and hired me up there. He hired myself and Coach Manning. He got the Oklahoma job, hired myself and Coach Manning. He got the USC job, hired myself and Coach Manning, so there is a common thread there," Odom said. "A lot of familiarity in that room, especially with us three. ... We see a lot of the things the same way. I’m very familiar with his scheme and how to coach it."

Said Manning: "Had the opportunity to meet Alex six or seven years ago when he took over at Washington State, and from the day I met him, knew a few things about him that he was highly-driven, highly-motivated, is wired what I would say the right way in terms of a person that players would want to be led by or gravitate toward. Really have hit it off since then.

"Being able to implement this defense now to be our third stop, extremely comfortable with Alex and what the schematics and so forth and so on of the defense."

Then there are the new additions ...

All of the assistants but Nichol were available to reporters Thursday, sharing their own stories of how they found their way onto Riley's staff this offseason.

Sticking with the defense, the familiar name, of course, is Donte Williams, who is now the defensive backs coach/defensive pass game coordinator after previously holding the titles of associate head coach and then interim head coach for the final 10 games of last season. Despite the broad DBs coach designation, he'll again focus on the cornerbacks, as Grinch coaches the safeties and Manning has the nickels.

For his part, Williams did not want to share any perspective on what the month of December was like for him, going from coaching the Trojans' final game at Cal to some degree of uncertainty about his future to choosing to remain in the program.

"The biggest thing for me like always I've said, I'm not focused on the past at all," he said.

Grinch, meanwhile, went a little deeper on the decision to retain Williams as the lone holdover from the previous staff.

"[He] was a guy that we've known over the course of time. Obviously, you've got a respect factor for several guys as you're in the business long enough. Guys either that you've competed against on the field, competed against from a recruiting standpoint, all that stuff ties into it, and then most importantly is having the conversation, can this be a good fit for your program?" Grinch said.

"... Are there advantages to sometimes having an individual that's been a part of the program? Only if they're good enough. To just give us the inner workings of USC football in the past, that has zero to do with him being a part of our current staff. I think he's an elite coach, I think he's an elite recruiter. Oh, by the way, I think he's a good person and a guy I'm thrilled to work with."

And the final piece to the defensive puzzle was defensive line coach Shaun Nua, who spent the last three seasons coaching the DL at Michigan after previous stops at Arizona State and Navy.

"No. 1 reason was family. I'm a West Coast guy -- way, way west. I'm straight from American Samoa and all of my ties are there, especially my family. So my dad has brothers in California, my mom has brothers and a sister in California and then my siblings live in Phoenix. So that was No. 1," Nua said of how he was enticed to leave a College Football Playoff program to come help rebuild the Trojans.

"No. 2 is USC. It's what we watched when were younger, when I was a kid. We watched USC. And then Coach Riley. You talk to Coach Riley for five minutes and you want to do everything he does. So I was on board with it. Not saying it was easy leaving Michigan. I'm one of those guys that put my heart and soul in coaching, into whatever I'm [working] on. So that was not easy. But Coach Riley made it easy."

That was more or less the refrain from the offensive newcomers to Riley's staff, as well.

"If Lincoln Riley gives you a call and asks you to be part of the staff, it takes you about 10 seconds to figure out that you're going to come be a part of it," new tight ends coach Zach Hanson said.

Hanson is technically another staff addition with a pre-existing connection to Riley -- albeit a unique one.

His wife Annie Hanson is USC's new executive director of recruiting, after filling a similar role at Oklahoma with Riley. Zach Hanson was most recently coaching the offensive line at Tulsa the last two seasons but he did spend 2019 as a senior offensive analyst with the Sooners.

"I've known Lincoln really well. Annie was one of the first people he hired at Oklahoma, so we built a good relationship over the years. There's been a lot of trust, living away from your family and things. Just trusting that Annie can go to a place and work and be away from each other and there's a lot of people involved in that," he said. "Our relationship with Lincoln has been great. He's been awesome every step of the way for both of us. ...

"Obviously, when he got the job here, was not expecting anything -- he's going to hire the best people he sees fit for his staff, and we were in good positions where we were at, but when he gave us that call it was a no-brainer to come here together, be part of a great staff."

Meanwhile, Josh Henson, who will hold the title of offensive coordinator in addition to coaching the offensive line, was the OL coach at Texas A&M the last three seasons as part of a career path that has also taken him through LSU, Missouri (including three seasons as OC) and Oklahoma State.

In his case, he was well aware of and intrigued by the USC job opening prior to having any contact with Riley about it ...

"At some point I had kind of figured that [Oklahoma OL coach Bill] Bedenbaugh would come to 'SC with Coach Riley -- they'd been together for a long time, had a lot of success at Oklahoma. When I saw that wasn't happening, I was certainly interested in the job," Henson shared. "We had a mutual contact with coach Alex [Grinch]. Coach Grinch and I worked for two to three years at Missouri, and so there were several conversations on the phone between Coach Riley and I and obviously there's always business sides to these negotiations, but those things all worked out.

"But more importantly than the math it was talking about the opportunity of USC, the timing of this job at this time right now, and all those things to me were super attractive. It was very attractive to me too because I'd heard what kind of man that Coach Riley is, the kind of character that he has, the way he runs his program and the culture he builds and I wanted to come be a part of that."

Henson, who helped bring in elite offensive line recruiting classes at Texas A&M, was perhaps the most high-profile staff addition for Riley, and his comments speak to the notion that USC might again be a destination job now for assistant coaches in a way it wasn't in recent years.

"With Coach Riley at 'SC at this school at this time, I think it's a wonderful time to be here, it's the right time to be here," Henson said. "As you can already tell with some momentum in recruiting and some of the things that are going on with our program currently, I just feel the future is very bright and 'SC is going to be a place where a lot of great players are going to want to come, throw their hat in the ring and go to work."

Henson holds the title of offensive coordinator, but he was quick to acknowledge that this remains Riley's offense and the head coach will be calling the plays.

"No. 1, Coach Riley is the play-caller and the play-caller's vision is always going to be the vision for the offense," he said. "So my job is to support him, it's to bring some new ideas, maybe some new thoughts, present those and maybe some supplemental things that I think can make the offense better. But that's a secondary role. My primary role is just to support Coach Riley, make sure that the things we're doing, be there to double check, make sure the things we're doing are going to give us the best chance for success."

And the final addition on the offensive side was running backs coach Kiel McDonald, who spent the past five seasons in the same role at Utah.

USC had initially hired Tashard Choice away from Georgia Tech to fill the position before Texas hired him away. But in McDonald, the Trojans get an experienced coach who has been involved with one of the best rushing attacks in the Pac-12.

As for the appeal to him of making the move across the division, McDonald said it is "an opportunity to grow."

"I'm a West Coast guy, so just wanted to get better and develop at the end of the day. We've all grown up watching USC and who they are and what they've accomplished, the heights they've gone to, and I just want to be kind of a part of a staff that hopefully brings that back," he said.

That is the goal, after all -- to restore USC football to what it once was, to match the heights that the likes of Riley, Simmons, Grinch, Manning, Odom and Nua in his own regard have achieved elsewhere.

With no time to waste.

Riley made that clear in his own press conference last week for National Signing Day and also in regard to the staff he feels he's put together.

"You don't bring in a staff like this and all of a sudden set the bar low. You don't do that. The bar should never be low at USC. This is one of the best programs of all time and we feel like we've really assembled a championship staff," Riley said. "... Our expectations were high the day we got here and they will be high every single day that we're here coaching. That will not change."

Catch up on all of the introductory press conferences with USC's new assistants:

Offensive coordinator/offensive line Josh Henson: Video | Full transcript

Assistant head coach/outside WRs/offensive passing game coordinator Dennis Simmons: Video | Full transcript

Associate head coach for offense/inside receivers Dave Nichol: Was not available for press conference

Running backs coach Kiel McDonald: Video | Full transcript

Tight ends coach Zach Hanson: Video | Full transcript

Defensive coordinator/safeties Alex Grinch: Video | Full transcript

Assistant head coach for defense/OLBs/nickels Roy Manning: Video | Full transcript

Associate head coach for defense/ILBs Brian Odom: Video | Full transcript

Defensive backs/defensive pass game coordinator Donte Williams: Video | Full transcript

Defensive line coach Shaun Nua: Video | Full transcript