USC football’s Lincoln Riley disasterclass: Analyzing what went wrong, potential next jobs | Sporting News

USC football’s main website sings the praises of their now-head coach Lincoln Riley with just one small issue– most of their anecdotes date to his time before coaching the Trojans.

Just a snippet of the praises USC has for Oklahoma Lincoln Riley are as follows:

“[Lincoln won] 85 percent of his games in five seasons [in Oklahoma] and led the Sooners to four Big 12 titles and four New Year’s Six bowls with three College Football Playoff appearances… posted a 55-10 overall record in his five years (2017-21) at Oklahoma for an impressive .846 winning percentage… 37-7 (.841) in league play and won Big 12 championships in his first four years there as he became the first person to win outright Football Bowl Subdivision conference crowns in each of his first four seasons as a collegiate head coach. He set Oklahoma records for most victories in his first two (24), three (36) and four (45) seasons, breaking marks held by Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops,” via USC Athletics.

Despite these impressive anecdotes, Riley’s time at USC has widely been considered a bust, despite the massive 10-year, $110 million contract he recently signed. The Trojans have not lived up to expectations under Riley, begging the question: what went wrong?

Two glaring issues stand out among a sea of angry Trojan fans: playcalling and roster construction. 

In terms of playcalling, Trojanwire’s Matt Zemek describes Riley’s performance as “[not to] the typical Riley standard. The results speak for themselves. You are what you are. You are what your record says you are. USC is a 6-5 team which has struggled to score 30 points in most of its games this season. The play selection obviously didn’t lead to good results. Lincoln Riley was a failure in 2024.”

Zemek had plenty to say on Riley’s roster construction as well, detailing several issues with quarterbacking, the offensive line, underutilization of Jayden Maiava and Zachariah Branch, and much, much more. 

The fact of the matter stands clear: Riley is not cut out to continue at USC. He’s shown flashes of being an incredible coach, but his time at USC has come to an end. As such, the question arises, then: where will Riley go? 

Many theories have arisen about Riley’s next job: some crazier than others.

First, there is the potential for Riley to replace Mack Brown, who’s recently been fired from his head coaching position at UNC. 

One of the wild theories put forth thus far is the potential of Riley taking an NFL job, specifically with his old QB Caleb Williams in the Bears organization. Many speculate that Riley would fit in as he’s “leagues better of a talent developer and evaluator than… even Ryan Poles with how he recruited offensive talent.”

With Matt Eberflus fired, this could be in play.

These theories are perhaps the most prevalent so far, but they don’t even take into account the tens of other jobs that will open up by the end of the season. As such, Riley’s future is quite unknown at this time, but one thing is for sure…

He won’t continue at USC for long.