The Heisman Trophy legacy being created by Lincoln Riley is genuinely astounding. Riley has already joined Pete Carroll as a USC head coach with three Heisman winners to his credit. Riley has become the second head coach in the history of college football to coach Heisman winners at two different schools. Tommy Prothro, who coached in the AAWU (later named the Pacific 8 Conference) in the 1960s, is the only other man to pull off that feat.
Riley has coached four top-two Heisman vote-getters over the past six seasons. He also coached Dede Westbrook to a top-four Heisman vote at Oklahoma. Riley’s imprint and reach in Heisman circles are already very large.
Riley isn’t yet 40 years old. His Heisman achievements are likely to continue to grow. If he stays at USC for at least 10 years, he is likely to become the all-time leader in most Heisman winners coached. Only Nick Saban (four) has more Heisman winners than Riley does, and Saban is over 30 years older than Riley.
We talked about this with Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football:
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