Advertisement
football Edit

USC announces it has hired Oklahoma's Lincoln Riley as head coach

**Not subscribed? Take advantage of our best deal of the year and follow all of our in-depth coverage on USC's hiring of Lincoln Riley and what it means for the Trojans moving forward! Pay just $20.21 for the first year of a new annual subscription by using this link and promo code: RIVALS2021**

Advertisement

Like dominos, one after another Sunday morning the tweets started mounting and intensifying quickly.

USC was targeting Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley. The Trojans were closing in a deal. It was expected to be done within 24 hours. Riley had told his OU players he was leaving. Eventually, The Athletic's Bruce Feldman and the Los Angeles Times' Ryan Kartje reported the deal was done.

And hours later USC formally announced the biggest kaboom in college football's annual coaching carousel.

Riley, who went 55-10 with four Big 12 championships and three College Football Playoff appearances in five seasons at Oklahoma, one of the most celebrate young coaches in the sport, is now a Trojan.

It was one fantastic flurry of new for USC fans who have been cautiously optimistic the school's two-and-a-half-month coaching search would end favorably.

Needless to say, this is just about a best-case scenario.

RELATED: USC and Mike Bohn win the coaching carousel with Lincoln Riley hiring

“We are ecstatic to announce Lincoln Riley as our new head coach and welcome his wife Caitlin and their daughters Sloan and Stella to the Trojan Family,” athletic director Mike Bohn said in a statement. “Lincoln is the rarest combination of extraordinary person and elite football coach. His successes and offensive accolades as a head coach the past five years are astonishing. Lincoln will recruit relentlessly, develop his players on and off the field, and implement a strong culture in which the program will operate with the highest level of integrity and professionalism.

“Lincoln is universally considered one of the brightest and most talented football coaches in the nation, and the fact that he chose USC is a testament to the strength of our brand, the power of the Trojan Family, and the leadership of our university. This is for our current players, our former players, our alumni, our fans, and our entire university community. Our time is now.”

Simply put, this is the biggest coup of that so-called coaching carousel, as a languishing USC football program will now be led by a 38-year-old up-and-comer who went 12-2, 12-2, 12-2, 9-2, 10-2 in his first five seasons as head coach while finishing with final AP rankings of No. 3, 4, 7 and 6 the last four years. His 2021 team is not playing in the conference championship game but is 10-2.

“I am truly excited to come to USC and join the Trojan Family as its new head football coach. USC has an unparalleled football tradition with tremendous resources and facilities, and the administration has made a deep commitment to winning. I look forward to honoring that successful tradition and building on it," Riley said in a statement. "The pieces are in place for us to build the program back to where it should be and the fans expect it to be. We will work hard to develop a physical football team that is dominant on both lines of scrimmage, and has a dynamic balanced offense and a stout aggressive defense.

“I want to thank the administration, coaches and players at Oklahoma for five incredible years as their head coach. We accomplished some great things there and I will always cherish my time as a Sooner.”

An introductory news conference is tentatively set for 3 p.m. PT Monday.

Not only does Riley bring his accomplished resume to Los Angeles now, but he has been plundering top recruits from USC's backyard, so his hiring should be an immediate and immense boost to Trojans recruiting as well.

Oklahoma's No. 8-ranked 2022 recruiting class includes five-star Mater Dei HS RB Raleek Brown, who has been a top target of the Trojans for years, as well as other former top USC targets like four-star CB Gentry Williams (Tulsa, Okla.), four-star OT Jake Taylor (Las Vegas, Nev.), four-star RB Gavin Sawchuk (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) and three-star WR Nicholas Anderson (Katy, Texas).

Brown tweeted his reaction almost immediately Sunday in saying "Staying home?"

Meanwhile, the Sooners' 2023 recruiting class includes commitments from five-star Los Alamitos HS QB Malachi Nelson and his two four-star WR teammates Makai Lemon and Deandre Moore, who were also top USC targets.

Simply put, Bohn and senior associate AD Brandon Sosna stole away one of the most respected coaches in college football and the one who could have the biggest possible immediate impact on recruiting.

Starting with his two years as Oklahoma's offensive coordinator in 2015-16 and extending through his head coaching tenure, his Sooners offenses have ranked -4th (43.5 points per game), 3rd (33.9), 3rd (45.1), 1st (48.4), 6th (42.1), 6th (43.0) and 11th (38.4) nationally in scoring, and 7th (530.2 yards per game), 2nd (544.8), 1st (579.6), 1st (570.3), 3rd (537.6), 11th (494.7) and 31st (440.6) nationally in total offense.

He coached back-to-back Heisman Trophy winners in QBs Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray and a Heisman runner-up in Jalen Hurts.

Riley was a walk-on backup quarterback at Texas Tech and got his coaching start there as a student assistant from 2003-05, a graduate assistant in 2006 and as WRs coach from 2007-09, before moving on to become the offensive coordinator at East Carolina from 2010-14 and then the OC at Oklahoma from 2015-16 before replacing retired Sooners legend Bob Stoops as head coach.

At East Carolina, Riley helped set more than 50 team and individual school offensive records during his time there, producing the top five passing seasons in school history and top four total offense marks. In 2014, ECU set a school season mark with 6,929 yards of total offense.

Interestingly, he overlapped with USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, who was Texas Tech's QB from 2005-08; was a teammate of USC OL coach Clay McGuire, who played at Texas Tech from 2001-04; later coached with McGuire at Tech and again at East Carolina in 2010-11, where McGuire was the RBs coach and special teams coordinator; and overlapped for a year with USC TEs coach Seth Doege in 2009 at Texas Tech, where Doege was a QB.

It will be interesting to see if Riley now has interest in retaining any of those coaches on staff at USC.

The L.A. Times reported that Riley's buyout at Oklahoma was $4.5 million and, according to the USA TODAY database, he was making $7.673 million this season with the Sooners.

Terms of his USC contract have not been disclosed.

Riley will immediately transition to USC. Donte Williams will remain USC’s interim head coach for the final week of the 2021 season as the Trojans play at Cal on Saturday.

“Lincoln Riley is the perfect choice for our new head coach,” USC President Carol L. Folt said in a statement. “He is known for caring about the development and character of his players and winning at the highest level. Mike Bohn and I share a vision for the future of USC Athletics and hiring Coach Riley is a huge statement about where we are going as a program. I cannot wait to welcome Coach Riley and his family to Los Angeles and the Trojan Family.”

Stay tuned to TrojanSports.com for continuing in-depth coverage.

Join the discussion on Trojan Talk and share your reaction!

Advertisement