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It is staggering and stunning to contemplate what has happened to USC football under Lincoln Riley. The Trojans won 11 games in Riley’s first season and were one win from making the College Football Playoff. Find a USC fan who felt, in December of 2022, that the program wasn’t in a good position and wasn’t likely to achieve richly in the coming years. You would probably need a few hours to dig one out. Success didn’t seem guaranteed, but it sure seemed probable. Here we are in November of 2024, two years removed from that 11-win first season for Riley. USC has lost five games in consecutive seasons. The program stands on shaky ground. Riley has improved the defensive side of the ball, but the offense has not hit its targets this season, scoring 30 points or fewer most of the season instead of being north of 30 points, which has usually been the Riley standard. We noted how shocking it has been to see Riley struggle like this, given where he and Nebraska’s Matt Rhule were five years ago:
“In the 2019 Big 12 Championship Game, Riley’s Oklahoma Sooners faced Rhule’s Baylor Bears for a spot in the College Football Playoff. The game went into overtime, and OU survived, 30-23. Baylor played well, but the Sooners had more talent. It was hard to watch that game and not think that Riley and Rhule were going to be great head coaches for the next decade of college football. It seemed obvious these coaches were headed for stardom.
“This past Saturday, their teams could not have played much worse. It is jarring to contemplate this reality, for both USC and Nebraska fans.”
Riley does need to make at least one change to his USC football coaching staff for 2025, given the state of his program. We aren’t predicting Riley will make a change, but we do think he has to act. We will explore that change…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/lincoln-riley-coaching-change-happen-204535056.html
Author : Trojans Wire
Publish date : 2024-11-19 20:45:00
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