You win some, you lose some. At USC, that’s the recipe for a horrible soccer season.
The 5-5 Trojans, who play UCLA on the Rose Bowl on Saturday evening, have blown fourth-quarter leads in all 5 of their losses. It’s a dramatic departure from the promise of two years in the past, when head coach Lincoln Riley went 11-3 in his debut season.
In the meantime, the 4-6 Chicago Bears have dropped 4 in a row, averaging 11.5 factors in that dropping slide. There’s turnover on the high of roughly one-quarter of the 32 NFL groups in a given 12 months, and Chicago’s Matt Eberflus is a number one candidate for alternative. By all indications, he must get on a successful streak to avoid wasting his job, and the Bears have a brutal remaining schedule that features two video games every towards Detroit and Minnesota, plus San Francisco, Seattle and Inexperienced Bay.
The Bears used final spring’s No. 1 general draft decide on quarterback Caleb Williams and have to capitalize on that funding. It doesn’t take a lot to attach the dots between Williams and his outdated quarterback whisperer at USC.
“Who would you rather put with Caleb Williams than Lincoln Riley?” requested CBS school soccer analyst Rick Neuheisel, who has coached in each school and the NFL. “If the Bears make a move on Eberflus, why wouldn’t you want to put Caleb with a guy who made him that comfortable?”
It’s all hypothetical now. There’s no indication that Riley has plans — or perhaps a want — to depart USC. However there’s no avoiding it, his identify will floor as vacancies pop open.
With the intention to gauge the NFL curiosity in Riley, and the way it has been affected by his three seasons at USC, I reached out to 2 top-level crew executives, one from every convention. I supplied them anonymity, together with their crew and particular job title, so they might communicate as candidly as potential. Every would work instantly with a crew proprietor when it got here to hiring a head coach.
For simplicity causes, the executives might be referred to right here as merely NFC and AFC.
Each praised Riley’s offensive acumen, and referenced the current success of Kliff Kingsbury, who was on the USC workers final season and now’s offensive coordinator of the Washington Commanders, working with excellent rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.
“If you’re Chicago, I think you have to at least consider it,” NFC mentioned of exploring Riley’s availability. “Behind the scenes you can definitely make a call and say, ‘Hey, would there be interest?’ You’ll do that with Lincoln, and you’ll probably do that with Kliff too. Because those are guys who are heavily invested in Caleb Williams and have a relationship with him.
“I look at [Riley] as more of an offensive guy. At Oklahoma, he did a pretty good job with the culture there. What I’m hearing is at SC it hasn’t quite taken hold yet. I don’t know if that’s because of the staff he has around him or what. I think he’s definitely capable, more than capable of being an NFL head coach. But every organization has a different identity. … If there’s seven openings this year, I don’t know that all seven teams are knocking on his door.”
“The defense was awful last year. That’s on the head coach. The coordinator is on you. You could pick whoever you want as a coordinator.”
— An AFC scout on Lincoln Riley and his protection in 2023
There are two conceivable NFL paths for Riley, as a head coach and offensive coordinator. If contemplating him as a possible head coach, groups must take USC’s defensive struggles into consideration.
“The biggest thing with the NFL if you’re evaluating him as a head coach is what type of team identity are you trying to bring?” AFC mentioned. “His teams typically have a good offense and the defense hasn’t been as great. Why is that? At Oklahoma, they had some talented dudes but they were still giving up 40 points. What type of culture? What type of practices? Are you a tough football team? Are you finesse?
“They’re better on defense this year. They brought in a coordinator. Obviously, [Riley] has won everywhere he’s been. But these last couple of years, I don’t know that it’s helped him. Caleb wasn’t as good last year, and the team around him wasn’t as good either.
Lincoln Riley brought in coordinator D’Anton Lynn (above) from UCLA to coach the defense.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“The defense was awful last year. That’s on the head coach. The coordinator is on you. You could pick whoever you want as a coordinator. At SC, they’re going to pay. You’re going to have all the athletes, but yet you let it get to a point where they’re one of the worst defenses in the country? How does that happen?”
What’s extra, AFC mentioned that Riley’s friction with the media would at the very least be scrutinized by potential NFL suitors.
“If you have really thin skin, the NFL’s not a great job,” AFC mentioned. “Lincoln was kicking media out of practice? Come on. What are we doing? Let’s keep the main thing the main thing. That would worry me about him. … At least he’s been through pressure, because it’s high pressure with SC in Los Angeles, but you go to Dallas, you go to a New York team? Good luck.”
All that mentioned, there’s no indication Riley has any curiosity in leaving his present job.
“I know he really likes it at USC and he’s got a great setup there,” NFC mentioned. “I’m sure he wants that to work. Really, it’s a top-five job in college football. They’re just kind of in a transition right now.
“But with all the money and picks teams are giving up for quarterbacks, trying to identify and develop one, Lincoln’s one of the guys who can do that. … NFL owners can see those [coaches] from afar. They talk to other owners, coaches, media people about it. Some owners talk about it all day, every day.”
The record of head coaches who’ve succeeded at each ranges is strikingly quick. The one three to win a nationwide championship and Tremendous Bowl are Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and former Trojans coach Pete Carroll.
“[Hall of Fame quarterback] Terry Bradshaw asked me one time, ‘Can you compare coaching in college to coaching in professional ball?’” mentioned Johnson, additionally a Corridor of Famer and Fox NFL Sunday co-host who guided the Dallas Cowboys to 2 Tremendous Bowl wins. “I said, ‘A lot of people would say there’s a world of difference. I would say there’s a galaxy of difference.’
“With college football the priority is recruiting. With professional football, the priority is coaching. If you’re in one of those top 15 schools in the country in collegiate football, I used to say my wife, Rhonda, could have won nine games with that talent I had at Miami. The difference in the talent between the top schools and the bottom schools is vast.”
Pete Carroll received championships with USC and the Seattle Seahawks.
(Getty Photographs)
Tod Leiweke was president of the Seattle Seahawks when he lured Carroll from USC to the Pacific Northwest, noting in a textual content that “he was a winner wherever he was,” and, “players said he was more than a coach, but a mentor.”
Plenty of coaches who have been spectacularly profitable in school soccer have flopped within the NFL, amongst them City Meyer, Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz.
Carroll had been an NFL head coach and defensive coordinator earlier than his legendary run at USC, so going again to the professionals didn’t really feel overseas.
“He knew what he was walking into due to his prior experience,” Leiweke wrote. “He had honed his skills and was totally ready. And he is just a hell of a coach.”
There’s a important distinction between teaching in school and the NFL.
“I think it’s more appealing to be an NFL head coach right now,” NFC mentioned. “With college, the advantage is you’re basically your own general manager. The athletic director is the closest thing to an owner. But you get to run the show the way you want to do it, especially these high-profile programs. They give you the keys.
“The downside is, all of this NIL stuff,” referring to the rights of school athletes to regulate and revenue from their identify, picture and likeness, “and all the chaos that’s going on within college football with recruiting and working 11-plus months out of the year.
“You have parents with this NIL, ‘Hey, you’re not playing my son, we’re going to transfer.’ You don’t have to deal with that in the NFL. You have contracts, you have agents. A guy can request a trade or whatever but you don’t have to deal with the chaos.
“Guys want to get back to just football. They don’t want to deal with all the little tedious stuff that doesn’t matter to what’s happening on the field.”
As devoted as he’s to soccer, Riley isn’t singularly obsessed. He has a broader perspective on life, too. In a narrative final 12 months about turning 40, Riley informed the Los Angeles Occasions that he has by no means been fixated on burnishing his private legacy.
The temperament of USC head coach Lincoln Riley is in query relying upon what job he is likely to be provided within the NFL some day.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Occasions)
“I know right now, there are things I want to do,” Riley informed The Occasions’ Ryan Kartje. “I don’t want to have regrets when I’m done, at the end of my life. I do think about that. I just don’t want to have regrets, especially with anything that has to do with my family. It’s hard not to consider the possibility of starting over in life.”
Stated Neuheisel, whose résumé contains school head-coaching jobs at Colorado, Washington and UCLA, and offensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens: “I think Lincoln Riley is a brilliant tactician that would need a really good defensive coordinator in the NFL, and then I think he can be great. But just like anybody else, they all need a quarterback.
“So to me, this is why I think Kliff Kingsbury is going to stay right where he is, unless he gets a chance to go to Chicago and coach Caleb Williams. But I think they’re going to make it really good to stay there in Washington and be the coordinator for a high price and just coach your guy.”
Likewise, Neuheisel mentioned, if Riley have been to depart USC, he can be most coveted as an NFL offensive coordinator.
“The bottom line is, he’s a wonderful offensive mind,” Neuheisel mentioned. “And the NFL’s in desperate search for offense.”
