USC football: Lincoln Riley responds to claim he wanted to avoid the SEC

Lincoln Riley shocked college football by moving to USC this offseason. Was that to avoid the SEC?

Not long after Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC this offseason, the word around the rumor mill was that the coach bolted in order to avoid coaching in the SEC.

But those claims aren't so, Riley says.

"I heard the whole SEC narrative," he told CBS Sports.

"To me, the SEC has nothing to do with it. It's all about the program that you're at and the position you think you can get to."

OU is headed for that conference in 2025, setting up a much harder annual schedule for the Sooners than the Trojans will face in the Pac-12.

The balance of power in that conference, combined with USC's traditional recruiting base and Riley's history of roster building, mean that the Trojans will have an easier path to the College Football Playoff in future, at least in theory.

Riley made it sound like he couldn't win a national championship at Oklahoma.

"I've walked into four playoffs, and I've never had better than maybe the third-best roster [of the four semifinal teams]," Riley said. 

"Every other year, we were four of four. We had really good rosters, but they weren't the same. … I can't imagine that there could be a setting that we could build a better roster than we can here."

(h/t CBS Sports)

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