USC’s Lincoln Riley looks to build on initial success

Last year around this time, Lincoln Riley found himself dealing with office assignments, support staff hires, team discipline. All the non-football stuff that a first-year head coach must address.

But as Riley’s USC team began its second spring practice under his watchful eye this week, he couldn’t help but notice the difference a year has made.

“Everything [is different],” Riley told reporters over Zoom on Tuesday following USC’s second spring practice. “You have a sense that we’re building upon something now as opposed to just starting something.”

The start was more impressive than it was reasonable to expect after the end of the Clay Helton era. Riley’s Trojans won 11 of 12 in the regular season, then missed out on the College Football Playoff as Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams was slowed in the Pac-12 title game by a pulled hamstring.

If the disastrous meltdown in the Cotton Bowl against Tulane left a sour taste in your mouth, that’s understandable. But USC under Riley was ahead of schedule for most of 2022. So what of the encore?

Across the past two months of offseason, Riley feels USC has truly started to benefit from last year’s groundwork. A second program with strength coach Bennie Wylie and his full staff is working wonders, as is a full offseason with nutrition expert Rachel Suba.

Those are important gains for a program that had fallen behind in those areas in years past. But the biggest jump Riley sees already this spring is players’ understanding of the expectations under this coaching staff.

“I think it’s a lot of the same messages. It’s just taking that bar and moving that bar a little bit higher in everything we do,” Riley said. “What it took to win last year is going to be the same thing that it [takes] this year, but we’re at the point where I think we can ask more of our guys where they understand kind of what we’re doing and also why we’re doing it.”

This will allow defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and his staff to experiment a little more with scheme this offseason and determine what works best with the roster available to them.

The defense was a sore spot for USC last season. It fell apart in both losses to Utah and the implosion against Tulane. This offseason, the Trojans lost key contributors Tuli Tuipulotu and Mekhi Blackmon, putting into question how much the unit could improve.

Riley said the focus is on building elite units, not elite players that the rest of the position group leans on. And some of the incoming transfers, like former Oklahoma State linebacker Mason Cobb, have made strong early impressions that they can help mitigate those losses.

“We haven’t seen them in pads yet, so we’ll continue to learn more about them as players,” Riley said. “But how they’ve handled the offseason, their demeanor, wanting to come fit into this culture, wanting to win a championship, the team mantra here, those guys have fit into that very, very well.”