Tag: USC Football

National college football analysts are burying Lincoln Riley after failed USC season

Lincoln Riley is a national pinata right now.

The downfall of USC football means the vultures are swooping in. The national talkers and commentators are having a field day, reveling in the Trojans’ demise. Paul Finebaum spared no feelings in his critique of Lincoln Riley.

The SEC Network host took a blowtorch to Riley during this week’s episode of “The Matt Barrie Show” on ESPN YouTube.

After USC’s season came to a close with a 38-20 loss to UCLA on Saturday, Finebaum called Riley a “total fraud” and suggested he should be on the hot seat in Los Angeles.

Heading into the 2023 season, Riley’s USC squad — led by 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams on offense and Bear Alexander on defense — was expected to avenge their Pac-12 title game loss from a year ago and maybe appear in the College Football Playoff. USC didn’t come remotely close to that standard, finishing 7-5. The Trojans lost their five most important games of their season. They went 0-2 in their rivalry games against UCLA and Notre Dame. They went 0-3 against their foremost competitors in the Pac-12: Utah, Oregon, and Washington.

Pundits are ripping Riley left and right. USC is taking a lot of punches right now. The Trojans need a top defensive coordinator and other staff changes if they want to punch back in 2024.

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USC football’s collapse severely lowers the odds of a Lincoln Riley move to the NFL

USC fans don’t have to worry about a Lincoln Riley move to the NFL — at least not for 2024.

It has been a talking point for much of 2023: Would Lincoln Riley bolt for an NFL job and bring Caleb Williams with him in a two-for-one deal? It’s a great sports talk radio topic, also the kind of topic which is great to kick around with your buddies at a sports bar or pub.

It also isn’t particularly realistic.

Lincoln Riley loves the anonymity of being in Los Angeles. He can hide in the city in ways he never could hide in Norman, Oklahoma, where Sooner football is the big ticket, the big show, the big attraction, and everyone knows who the OU football coach is.

If Riley went to the NFL, that level of relative obscurity would decrease, and it would be harder for him to blend into a large city.

All of that aside, Riley’s odds of moving to the NFL have plummeted in light of USC football’s disastrous 7-5 season. Riley has to repair USC and restore what has been lost this season before any NFL team or executive would touch him. Riley faces a crisis in his still-young coaching career. USC fans do not have to worry about the NFL, at least not for 2024.

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If USC defensive players leave before a coordinator is hired, is that good or bad?

This is a tough question. It is also an important one.

It was announced last week that USC junior linebacker Raesjon Davis would miss the rest of the season with a wrist injury, according to USCfootball.com’s Connor Morrissette.

Davis had surgery earlier last week that kept him out of the regular-season finale against UCLA on Saturday and will sideline him for the Trojans’ bowl game.

Now Davis could be the next Trojan to possibly transfer next season.

The 6-foot, 220-pound junior had four starts, 18 tackles, and assisted on a tackle for loss. Davis has logged more than 200 snaps on defense this season and has a 60.9 overall grade from Pro Football Focus.

Davis had some bright spots this season and showed a lot of effort. Being a senior, he could return and get more playing time, but he is a player to keep an eye on in terms of USC players who could transfer.

Until USC hires a new defensive coordinator, the Trojans hope they won’t lose too much talent for the 2024 season. However, it also needs to be said: If players aren’t willing to wait for the new coordinator to be hired, are they players USC wants to be part of a bounce-back season in 2024? That question is going to be raised a lot in the coming days. It’s an important question to ask as portal season begins.

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USC defensive lineman Jamar Sekona enters transfer portal

Portal season is here.

Transfer portal season is about to begin. The first offseason portal window opens on December 4. You are going to see a lot of players enter the portal in the coming weeks. One USC player wasted no time making a decision.

USC defensive lineman Jamar Sekona has chosen to enter the portal. He was a third-year player who recorded 11 total tackles and one sack in 10 games played across two active seasons.

Sekona played high school football at Greenbrae (California) Marin Catholic, where he was a three-star recruit in the 2020 class. He was also rated as the No. 435 overall player and No. 51 defensive lineman in his class.

Sekona was a three-star recruit according to 247sports.com’s composite rankings. He also held other offers from Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA , Oregon and Oregon State among others.

Look for Colorado, Texas, Arizona, Utah and BYU to be in the mix for Sekona. It will be fascinating to see how realignment — and Western schools being in new conferences next season — affects the choices transfers make across the college football landscape, but particularly among the current Pac-12 schools which will splinter off into new conferences.

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Trojans Wire takes calls from angry USC fans after disastrous implosion vs UCLA

We took your calls with @Tim_Prangley at the @VoiceOfCFB.

What a fine mess we have here at USC football. The program is in bad shape after the blowout loss to UCLA. It could be that Lincoln Riley will come up with an elite defensive coordinator and get the program back on track, but this is more than just filling one spot on a coaching staff.

USC’s offensive line was soft in the loss to UCLA, much as it was soft in the blowout loss to Notre Dame. Josh Henson’s performance as offensive line coach has been substandard. We have to wonder if this is more about Bennie Wylie’s performance as strength coach, or more about the way Riley structures his practices and the overall way the team prepares from week to week throughout the season and, beyond that, the whole 52-week calendar year. How deep do the problems run at USC?

That’s what we tried to explore in our latest call-in show with Tim Prangley at The Voice of College Football. USC fans are angry, and they should be. We fielded calls and tried to make sense of everything:

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USC defensive coordinator search update for November 20, with notes and analysis

Dave Aranda is likely to be fired. Tom Allen is likely to be fired. Lincoln Riley should have great choices for #USC DC.

USC football is a total mess right now. To be clear, the Trojans’ problems go far beyond their defensive coordinator. They probably need to fire strength coach Bennie Wylie, but if they don’t, Lincoln Riley must at least reconsider how he structures his program and organizes his practices. If USC doesn’t change at least one of those two components — strength and conditioning or practice structure — the Trojans are likely to remain stuck. They will continue to be mediocre.

This is why the defensive coordinator search is both important and fascinating, however. When defensive coordinator candidates interview for this job in the coming weeks, they will ask Riley about his methods and his strength program. If the answers Riley gives them are turn-offs, or Riley insists he won’t make changes to his operational philosophy (or both), those elite coordinators might choose to not come to USC. If Riley realizes elite coaching talent is staying away from USC because he’s unwilling to change his larger methods, that could force Riley to make changes on a larger scale.

It will be interesting to see if the interview process forces Riley to make bigger changes, or if Riley already knows he has to make those changes. One way or the other, those bigger changes need to be made.

Having established that key point, let’s now look at the updated situation involving the USC defensive coordinator search. The big story: Lincoln Riley should have a great candidate pool to choose from. We’ll explain why in our latest update:

Pitchforks are out for entire USC coaching staff after failed season and UCLA no-show

No one’s job should be safe after this disaster. Not one USC assistant performed at an elite level this year.

Name one USC assistant coach who did a great job this season — not good, but great.

You can’t.

None of Lincoln Riley’s assistant coaches maximized the talent at their disposal. None of the USC assistants improved their full position group over the course of the season. When a not-that-great UCLA team bullies USC for 60 minutes on both sides of the ball, no one can say the Trojans improved over the course of the season. At the end of 12 games, they were worse than they were in mid-September.

USC fans are angry, but the anger is not wild and unfocused. It is an appropriate reaction to several weeks of underachieving. The Trojan staff should be under fire after this completely unacceptable season.

From Donte Williams to Josh Henson to Dennis Simmons to Roy Manning, this coaching staff flunked. No one’s job should be safe, with the possible exception of running back coach Kiel McDonald.

USC fans agree with that, as you can see below:

The list of embarrassments for Lincoln Riley at USC is endless, and he must confront that fact

Lincoln Riley took a team with Caleb Williams and produced a 7-5 record. The coach must learn from this epic failure.

Where does one begin when cataloging the many embarrassments, failures and humiliations suffered by Lincoln Riley and USC football this season?

There is a bowl game to be played, but it will not be significant in any profound sense. It will be a chance for 2024 players to get needed work and practice, particularly with a new defensive coordinator looking into the operation and gathering information for next year. In essence, USC’s season ended on Saturday. It could not have gone much worse.

Itemizing a number of specific failures might seem like piling on and just being mean, but no — we need to mention all of these failures so everyone at USC absorbs them and gains clarity on how to avoid them in the future. The enormity of failure has to be confronted, piece by piece, for fresh accountability and meaningful change to emerge next season.

Here is a list of some of the failures of Lincoln Riley and USC this season. We mention them not to repeat refrains or mantras, but to make the program aware of how badly it failed and how fully it must rethink its methods in the pursuit of transformation next season in the Big Ten.

Here we go:

Dan Mullen questioned if Lincoln Riley should be on the hot seat after UCLA loss

Dan Mullen thinks Lincoln Riley could be on the hot seat.

A coach who knows what it’s like to be on the hot seat has openly wondered if another coach should be on the hot seat.

Former Florida coach Dan Mullen, who now works with ESPN as a football analyst, questioned on social media Saturday if USC football coach Lincoln Riley should be on the hot seat for the Trojans’ disappointing season.

We say “disappointing” because what’s likely the last season for Caleb Williams at the school was largely undone due to poor defense.

Former USC defensive coordinator Alex Grinch has already been fired this season, and now Mullen is questioning if Riley should be next instead of UCLA coach Chip Kelly, who has also been feeling the heat lately.

Okay, while there is an unavoidable irony in a fired coach wondering if another coach should be fired, it doesn’t take away from the frustration USC fans must be feeling after losing 38-20 to UCLA and closing out a letdown season.

While Riley is very unlikely to lose his job after this season, someone like Mullen openly wondering if he should can’t be ignored.

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USC and Lincoln Riley are humiliated by UCLA — will it create necessary changes?

Getting crushed by UCLA is bad. What would be worse is if Lincoln Riley doesn’t change methods and learn key lessons.

What a magnificent disaster it was for the USC Trojans in their regular-season finale against the UCLA Bruins. In what will likely be Caleb Williams’ last game as a Trojan and a college football player, USC showed no heart, no fight, no backbone and no toughness in a tissue-soft blowout loss to UCLA.

The Trojans bent the knee. They meekly submitted to UCLA’s physicality, aggression and toughness.

Time after time in this game, a UCLA player — it didn’t matter who — won a one-on-one matchup. Whether it was a lineman against another lineman, or a defensive back against a USC receiver, or a USC linebacker against a UCLA ball carrier, or a USC defensive back against a UCLA pass catcher, the Bruin won the battle. The Trojan lost the battle.

A full game of these accumulated one-on-one losses led to a decisive UCLA conquest of USC, sending the Trojans to a 7-5 record and an offseason filled with questions.

There is no shortage of talking points after a loss such as this one. Let’s deal with some of the fallout and some of the tough conversations Lincoln Riley needs to have. We will obviously have a lot more to say about this in the coming days … and weeks … and months, until the 2024 season opener.

Let’s examine this mess instead of ignoring it: