LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California is teetering on the edge of another failure in its College Football Playoff quest. Lincoln Riley's coaching tenure doesn't appear to be on much sturdier footing.
Riley says he isn't ready to give up on either one.
Riley affirmed his love for USC and his confidence in his program's direction as he prepares the Trojans (6-2) to face No. 2 Ohio State on Saturday night with their Playoff hopes in precarity.
“My job
is to stay steady,” Riley said Tuesday at USC’s $225 million Bloom Performance Center, which opened this year. “If I didn't want to be at this place, I wouldn't have come here in the first place. If I didn't want to be at this place, I've had plenty of opportunities to leave. This is where I want to be. This is the right place for me. I'm the right person to be here.”
Riley acknowledged he understands why questions are being asked about his future after USC's embarrassing 24-7 loss at Wisconsin last weekend in the worst offensive output ever from a Riley-led team. The Trojans are unranked two-thirds of the way through the fifth season of Riley’s tenure, during which he has yet to earn a conference title or a Playoff berth.
USC paid top dollar to poach Riley from Oklahoma because it was determined to get out of the mediocre rut in which this once-dominant program had spent the previous decade. Riley hasn't delivered that level of success on the West Coast, but he insists it's still possible this season and in the future.
“I love it here,” Riley said. “There’s not too many people in college football history that gave up what I gave up to come here, so I don’t care if it’s 15 years down the line, that never should be taken lightly. I came here because this is where I wanted to be. I came here because I believe in this place, and none of that has changed whatsoever.”
Riley, a Texas native who had never coached west of Lubbock before moving to USC, disagrees with the outside notion he hasn’t been a good fit in Los Angeles.
He also said his relationship with athletic director Jen Cohen, who replaced Mike Bohn in 2023, is “fantastic. She’s a tremendous AD. Even though she’s not the AD that I came here with and I’m not the head coach that she hired, (it's a) fantastic relationship. She’s been a huge part of the progress that we’ve made and has been incredibly supportive.”
USC chose Riley to replace Clay Helton, the longtime assistant who got the job in bizarre circumstances and held it for a shockingly long time before his firing in 2021.
But Riley is 41-20 with the Trojans, while Helton was 39-22 at the same point in his widely criticized tenure.
And USC would have to do something extraordinary to earn the school’s first Playoff berth over the next four games: Three of the Trojans’ final four opponents are currently in the top seven of the AP Top 25, sporting a combined record of 20-2.
After Ohio State and a bye, USC travels to defending national champion Indiana before finishing the regular season against Maryland and No. 7 UCLA. The crosstown Bruins’ success this season under first-year coach Bob Chesney is particularly galling to Trojans faithful who see their own dreams being realized in Westwood.
But Riley isn't giving up, and neither are his players.
“I know he's the right guy,” left tackle Elijah Paige said. "Coach Riley is actually the reason I came here. I believe there's not a better leader in the country, and I love going to war for Coach Riley. I believe everybody in this locker room and this entire building thinks the same thing."
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