If you are looking at ways for USC to build itself up to a national championship standard for 2023 and then for its first Big Ten season in 2024, the transfer portal is going to be a central avenue for Lincoln Riley.
Among various head coaches at elite college football programs, Riley has already established himself as a leader in the transfer portal. This is how he immediately built back the USC roster. This is something he will continue to do in future years to stock his roster and address deficiencies.
Actual transfer portal declarations (players entering the portal) have not yet occurred in large numbers, but one can reasonably guess that exoduses and defections will begin to accumulate at the end of the regular season, which is one month away.
Two schools in particular are likely to provide a lot of high-quality transfers to Lincoln Riley’s USC program and other interested programs. Let’s go through the details on why this is true, and what it could mean: