USC Football: Lincoln Riley Looks Vulnerable As Trojans Struggle, Sooners Rise
USC Trojans football head coach Lincoln Riley faced several questions after a brutal loss against a school rival in his team's Week 7 contest.
Notre Dame dominated the Trojans on all three levels and left many Trojan fans wondering what happened to the vaunted former Sooners' leader the university hired.
Matt Zemek of Trojans Wire writes in a new piece that Riley's former school may be better off without him after their recent rise and USC's current slide.
Brent Venables inherited a difficult situation and was not nearly as deft in the transfer portal in the 2022 offseason as Lincoln Riley was. OU was set up to fail in 2022, and Venables needed time for Jerry Schmidt’s strength program to take effect because he had a bunch of players who weren’t used to that regimen when he took over the Sooners. Conversely, Riley’s instant portal infusion of talent set up USC well for 2022, and he inherited offensive linemen coached well by Clay McGuire. The portal pickup of Bobby Haskins from Virginia also proved to be huge. Bennie Wylie’s strength program wasn’t all that central or transformative for these linemen. They were already seasoned and developed by other previous coaches.
Zemek suggests that Venables cleaned up many of the issues left behind by Riley and turned the Sooners back into the championship contenders they once were.
Riley meanwhile suffered an ugly defeat early in the final year of the Pac-12 conference and will likely be on the outside of the CFP picture once again.
This certainly isn't the outcome that anyone around USC football envisioned after Riley's surprise hire in 2022 as the Trojans likely will fall short of their ultimate goals for another season.
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