Part of why many pundits and analysts predicted that USC would go 9-3 or 8-4 in Year 1 of the Lincoln Riley era was the simple calculation that this would be USC’s worst team under Riley. That was a fair reading of the situation. This did figure to be a year in which Riley and his staff fought a noticeably uphill battle on a lot of fronts.
They didn’t have the depth. They didn’t have the benefit of a full recruiting cycle. They had to change the culture from Clay Helton and purge the program of players who weren’t up to par. This was a year to clean up the mess Helton left behind and essentially start fresh. Riley loaded up in the transfer portal, having to coach a lot of new arrivals to the program, even if they were experienced players with ample gameday reps at other schools. Riley and his staff had to handle a lot of moving parts in Year 1 at a new place. Making the adjustment from Oklahoma certainly carried the possibility of chaos, disorganization, and failure. That’s why a 9-3 or 8-4 season seemed likely for a lot of football experts.
Yes, we know how this season turned out: Riley and his staff exceeded expectations, going 11-2 and making the Pac-12 title game. USC was picked to miss the Pac-12 Championship Game, but the Trojans got there and reached a New Year’s Six bowl. Lots of preseason and midseason bowl projections had USC going to the Alamo or Holiday Bowls.
Yet, as well as this season went, the comparisons with the 8-4 or 9-3 predictions remain relevant for one simple reason: Even though USC went 11-2 and not 9-3, Lincoln Riley agrees with the football pundits.
He firmly believes 2022 will — and should — become his worst USC season. If there’s a worse USC season than this one, Riley will have underachieved. Riley admitted it himself:
#USC HC Lincoln Riley says he will be disappointed if this is not the worst team the Trojans have in his tenure at USC.
— Shotgun Spratling (@ShotgunSpr) December 21, 2022
#USC HC Lincoln Riley: 'This [season is] just the tip of the iceberg. This is so bottom level of what this program can be.'
Added that this could be the start of something special and the message being sent to recruits is that they better jump on to be a part of it.
— Shotgun Spratling (@ShotgunSpr) December 21, 2022
This was not a bad USC season, but the full expectation is that the program will only get better from this point onward. No more Year 1 chaos. No more “settling into the program” limitations. No more worries about “changing the culture.” That has already happened. It’s now time to be better on a consistent basis.
No excuses.
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