One could say that Lincoln Riley is newly embracing patience at USC. What do we mean by that? Riley is talking about defense and toughness more, and he is talking less about offense and playing shootouts. Riley is carrying himself like a coach who, for the first time in his career, is comfortable winning games 17-10 instead of 52-49. Patience is real, and it matters for coaches in the Big Ten or anywhere else in the sport. Jim Leonhard was discussed here at Trojans Wire as a possible defensive coordinator candidate the past few years. He has had to exhibit patience as well, but in a notably different way.
Ben Kenney of Badgers Wire told us that Leonhard — who is now the secondary coach for the Denver Broncos, and who did not get any of the plum head coaching or coordinator jobs which came open in the most recent coaching carousel cycle — did not have the perfect job available for him once he was boxed out at Wisconsin in favor of Luke Fickell. Kenney told us that coaches shouldn’t just get high-profile jobs for the sake of doing so. The fit needs to be there, and Kenney didn’t think other open jobs provided that fit. Here’s more from that podcast we did with Ben:
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