The USC Trojans needed to land Derrick Harmon, but they didn’t. Oregon did. We are left with a situation in which the Trojans don’t seem to have enough high-level defensive linemen after a brutal 2023 season in which their defense didn’t measure up. It’s true that Lincoln Riley has dramatically upgraded the defensive coaching staff, but USC doesn’t appear to have enough dudes to compete at the very highest levels of the Big Ten.
Riley might have made appropriate staffing adjustments, but the residue of last year’s failed 8-5 season likely contributed to Harmon choosing Oregon over USC. The Ducks are closer to a national title than the Trojans are. Harmon’s decision can be seen as rational in that context.
All of this puts more heat on Riley. USC football analyst Josh Webb reminded everyone about Riley’s pronounced limitations when writing this:
“If you were to take a look at total defense stats for the years Riley has been a head coach and average them out, you’d get a team that’s consistently 81st in the nation in total defense. What about that screams elite? Then there’s the fact that in the last two years, he’s averaging 110th in the nation, so that aspect of the team is going in the wrong direction as well. All of this is without going into splits or different aspects like the run game, run game defense, sacks allowed, sacks gained, or anything of that nature. It gets worse.
“Is Lincoln Riley really that much better than any other Air Raid coach? Have we been caught up in the idea of Riley being successful those first couple of years (at Oklahoma) and then applied that to years in which his teams look outclassed and outcoached? I honestly don’t know the answer and I suspect I am not alone. Riley looks like a giant mystery right now.”
We will see how much 2024 amplifies or changes these kinds of very reasonable worries about Lincoln Riley.
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