Riley Really Needs to Boost His Image as USC Football Coach

The former Oklahoma leader has found his Trojans tenure turn tough at times.

USC coach Lincoln Riley walks on the field prior to a game against the Washington State Cougars in 2022. / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

Lincoln Riley seemed like such an obvious choice to head up the exalted USC football program and restore it as a national power after enjoying astonishing success at Oklahoma, where he won 55 of 65 games over five seasons.

Yet as he brings his team to Husky Stadium to face Jedd Fisch's first University of Washington entry on Saturday afternoon, people are beginning wonder if he, indeed, is a good fit for the Trojans.

First off, Riley hasn't been nearly as unbeatable in his third season at USC as he was with the Sooners, sporting a pedestrian 4-4 record, in a rebuild that isn't nearly as acceptable in Los Angeles as it is in, say, Seattle.

Secondly, his USC defenses haven't been able to stop anyone on defense since he hired on, whether it was because of coaching or a rash of injuries.

And, finally, after moving to the entertainment capital of the country, Riley hardly has been a media-wise coach in selling his team or himself to a sprawling Southern California city with so many options, so many football choices for that matter, to the point he's only been hurting himself.

As the losses have piled up this year and last, Riley banned a young reporter from practice because he didn't like what was written, sat with his players in news conferences and rejected questions directed their way after games because he didn't care for what asked, and just this week eliminated the short-window access reporters had been granted at the beginning of practice.

While he doesn't owe the media anything, Riley has presented himself in an unsympathetic manner, more to the point as an overly sensitive control freak, where Image is everything in college football these days. Columnists have roasted him at times for his supposed short-sightedness.

By comparison, Kalen DeBoer and Fisch each arrived in Seattle and made sure to connect with the people who write, talk and photograph them and show composure at all times, especially Fisch, who could use a lengthy grace period to rebuild the Huskies.

Riley, 41, formerly is a Texas Tech walk-on quarterback who was born in the tiny, dusty and now boarded-up town of Muleshoe, Texas, some 20 miles from the New Mexico border. Mike Leach made him a Tech graduate assistant to launch his coaching career and he spent a dozen years as an offensive coach for the Red Raiders, East Carolina and Oklahoma before he was elevated to replace a retiring Bob Stoops in 2017.

He was an instant success with the Sooners, coaching them to 12-2, 12-2, 12-2, 9-2 and 10-2 seasons, before he surprised everyone in college football by bolting for USC. Hollywood beckoned.

In his first season with the Trojans, he guided them to an 11-3 season that ended with a mystifying 46-45 Cotton Bowl loss to heavy underdog Tulane. Last year, USC lost every big-game match-up, including 52-42 at home to the Huskies, before finishing 8-5 with a 42-28 Holiday Bowl win over Louisville to somewhat mollify the fan base.

This season, Riley's team beat LSU 27-20 in its opener but lost four close Big Ten outings, again making people question the head man, this time poking at his game-management skills.

Some people suggest the critics need to back off this coach and give him plenty of space and time to get the USC football machine really rolling. Others wonder if he's the next Jimbo Fisher who won a national championship at Florida State and jumped to Texas A&M only to get fired in his sixth season in College Station.

The Trojans do have a rich history of parting ways with guys who were successful coaches before and after coming to USC, football leaders such as former Husky coach Steve Sarkisian now at Texas and Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss.

This Husky Stadium game represents an interesting juncture in Riley's coaching arc. He's fallen under the .500 level only twice in his eight-year, 100-game coaching career and will have that happen with a loss to the UW. He opened 1-2 with the Sooners with consecutive losses to Kansas State and Iowa State in 2020 before winning out, and he sunk to 3-4 this season before beating Rutgers last weekend.

Is Riley the right fit for USC?

That's not nearly as certain as it was three years ago when he was hired.

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