Tag: House of Victory

In recruiting, Lincoln Riley says USC isn’t bringing a knife to a gunfight

Lincoln Riley thinks USC has made a lot of progress in its recruiting operation.

USC recruiting has not been what one would call “bad,” but it’s hasn’t been at the level of Ohio State or Oregon or other programs which have assembled better rosters for 2024. USC’s conservative approach to NCAA compliance with NIL has put it at a major disadvantage to programs that have pushed the interpretation of recruiting rules and regulations in regards to high school prospects when compared to Oregon, Ohio State — or extreme cases like Tennessee.

Riley recently discussed USC’s new tack in recruiting high school prospects.

“Our NIL and how it’s evolved, certainly we’re able to be more aggressive with high school guys than we’ve ever been with it. A lot of that’s because our NIL has gotten a whole lot better and House of Victory and all those have done a phenomenal job.”

Recently J.K. McKay and Jeff McKay, formerly of another USC collective (The Conquest Collective), joined forces with House of Victory to work on consolidating the NIL strategy.  A new vison and direction within the USC collective space, along with changes to the conservative Trojan interpretation and adherence to NCAA guidelines will open things up to make recruiting against Ohio State and Oregon.

“You know you don’t want to be going to a gunfight with a knife,” Riley said. “In the beginning we were going to a gunfight with a toy sword, so definitely we’ve made a lot of progress. Those folks have done a great job. I think our strategy — I know I’ve talked about this — on how many high school guys we’re targeting has changed drastically. We have really shifted as I’ve told you — not completely away from the portal.  I don’t think we’ll ever be completely away from it, but you can just look at the numbers, right? We’re headed to becoming the developmental program that we want to be long-term for the next 10 or 15 years.”

“There’s been more high school recruiting. There’s going to continue to be more; the high school recruiting takes longer. It’s not as fast and furious as portal recruiting, and so a lot of times you’ve got to have relationships that are developed for multiple years. Having some of the consistency we’ve had on on certain parts of our staff for a long time now makes a difference on that as well. It’s become a bigger part of what we’re doing each and every year here. That’s going to continue to happen, and obviously as long as our NIL continues to climb, then you know we’ll continue to be as aggressive there as we need to be.”

USC is currently climbing up the team recruiting rankings. The hope is that with the progress expected on the defensive side of the ball, the impressive list of blue chip players, especially on defense, will continue to grow. USC is currently No. 5 in the 247Sports 2026 recruiting rankings.

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USC changes NIL policy, will now work without one hand tied behind its back

USC’s NIL approach will now be bolder and more expansive, something Lincoln Riley alluded to earlier this week.

Since the advent of NIL, the NCAA displayed a flexible approach in defining permissible activities. College programs such as USC received general guidelines and were tasked with interpreting how to operate within this emerging landscape, leaving room for varied interpretations.

The primary safeguard in place was to prevent programs from luring potential student-athletes to their school by offering money or benefits from NIL as an incentive. That was the clear guideline: NIL could not be used as an inducement to have players join a program; no pay for play. The types of collective deals and when they could be provided varied from program to program.

Regarding the interpretation of NIL guidelines, some schools opted for a literal approach, maintaining a conservative stance toward collectives working with high school and college prospects. In contrast, institutions such as Tennessee, Texas A&M, Oregon, and Miami adopted a more liberal and proactive approach by fostering collaborative relationships with collectives. 

Earlier this week, Trojans Wire reported Lincoln Riley’s comments that the Trojans’ collective strategy has “taken some monster leaps” since he arrived at USC.

“You have to have it,” Riley explained. “Last year was great outside of the whole collective world. Our guys were able to obviously, being in L.A., get more outside deals than anybody in the country, which is awesome, but we need the support to be right there with it too from our donors and from our collectives. That has taken some massive, massive jumps here in the last several months as our people get educated on what that really means, but it’s got to continue.”

This afternoon, Fight On Rusty (Arrogant Nation on X, formerly known as Twitter) shared a letter from the House of Victory (HOV), one of USC’s donor collectives. The letter explains that due to its NIL policy, “House of Victory has only provided NIL opportunities to current student athletes enrolled at USC.”

There’s more from the House of Victory note:

“Last month, Tennessee filed a lawsuit against the NCAA resulting in a federal judge granting an injunction blocking the NCAA from enforcing their NIL rules around recruiting.

“Consequently, House of Victory ahs now received full clearance from USC to support recruits with paid NIL opportunities before they enroll at USC.”

Prior to a recent policy shift, programs with a more flexible interpretation of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) guidelines had a significant financial advantage over programs such as USC in recruiting. USC’s recent impressive haul of defensive recruits could mark the beginning of a new era for the program, potentially leveling the playing field in recruiting.

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