Earlier this week, Connor Morrissette of USCfootball.com (247Sports) asked Lincoln Riley at a media scrum about the vibe around the USC program coming off a massive recruiting weekend. On Sunday, five defensive recruits committed to the Trojans. Three of them were four-star athletes. One was five-star prospect Justus Terry, who was committed to the Georgia Bulldogs for over a year.
“I think it’s validity to some of the decisions that we’ve made around here,” explained Riley. “You know, both recently, and I just think even for you know looking big scope, just even in the last couple of years … I mean to be able to have a weekend like we did last weekend is a big deal. I mean, there’s no question about it.”
Riley credits breaking ground on USC’s new football only facility and his assembly of elite defensive coaches as catalysts in the apparent turnaround for high school recruiting in the 2025 class. “You know one thing is an idea, but when you come here and you see construction and you actually sit down with all these staff members, you see kind of where all these things are headed.”
Riley reminisced on USC’s great past and its difficulties playing consistent, championship football the past decade and a half. He projected where the program is headed.
“It’s not hard to pick out the trajectory, and I think more and more people across the country, when they get on our campus, are seeing that and it’s a reminder that this place is–like what we have to offer kids– is different that anywhere else and it’s a lot of things that money can’t buy,” Riley pointed out. “It’s a great reminder, no matter what’s happened the last 10 or 15 years, man, like this thing’s still awesome. It’s going to get back to being awesome, and I think more people are seeing that and I think being reminded of that. The areas where we needed to improve (and) we need to step up, those things are happening. Weekends like that, if we continue to push, will continue to happen.”
We know that USC is going to play solid offense under Riley. We know that construction on state of the art athletics facilities has begun and will be completed in 2026. If the defense under D’Anton Lynn can replicate what he did last year at UCLA, it is also likely that we can count on more recruiting weekends like this past weekend.
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