Remarkably, the 2026 college football season will be the fifth year for Lincoln Riley as head coach of the USC Trojans.
When Riley came over from Oklahoma, he brought an exceptional resume. Over five seasons in Norman, he put up a 55-10 record, coached two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks and won four consecutive Big 12 Conference titles.
He had three consecutive College Football Playoff appearances, though never advanced to the National Championship game. Thanks in large part to a heartbreaking loss to the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2018 Rose Bowl. And therein lies the one thing missing from Riley’s list of accomplishments: a championship.
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While Oklahoma is a storied program in its own right, the move to USC brought with it championship-level expectations. Matching his high-octane offense with SC’s recruiting prowess and location in Southern California was supposed to get the Trojans back to the top of the college football world.
Well, SC has not returned to the top of the college football world. Which is why it’s so surprising that Lincoln Riley is telling the media he expects the program to be entering a “championship window.”
Lincoln Riley has high hopes for SC moving forward
In a new interview with On3’s Wilson Alexander, Riley said he believes that it’s been “a lot of work” to get there, but they’ve now gotten “this window opened.”
“USC had to get really serious about being great in the sport again,” he explained. “ I give the school administration, everybody, credit. They have.”
“Taking this over, you knew you had to go fight like hell just to try to get this window opened,” Riley said. “And we’re at a point right now where there’s a lot to be excited about and a lot in front of us. It’s been a lot of work for a lot of people, a lot of commitment from a lot of people to get there, and it should be a lot of fun these next few years.”
“We came here to win championships,” he continued. “ A lot of us have been fortunate enough to be a part of a lot of championships. We certainly didn’t come here for anything less. We’ve got to go buckle down and improve and really come together, but there’s the makings of a championship-level football team in that building right now.”
Riley’s critics would point to several examples of head coaches taking over programs and immediately turning them around. Curt Cignetti at Indiana, for example, went 16-0 and won a title in his second season. Kenny Dillingham took ASU to the playoff in his second year in Phoenix.
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Those situations, though, do have some differences with Riley’s time at SC. Indiana had significant financial backing to bring in a top transfer portal class, and Dillingham had the advantage of a “weaker” Big 12 Conference relative to the Big Ten or the Pac-12. SC fell behind quickly in the NIL era, only recently putting its financial muscle into recruiting and signing top classes.
Realistically, though, with a tough schedule, and the vaunted 2026 recruiting class needing time to develop, 2027 might be a better opportunity for SC to really compete for a title. But given the disappointing results in 2023 and 2024, Riley might need to win nine to 10 games to even get there.