Commentary: USC needs Lincoln Riley to take the next step of his evolution

COLLEGE PARK — At first read, it can seem like Lincoln Riley veers into public sensationalism, before one remembers he is still all of 41 years old.

When tight end Lake McRee was injured before the Holiday Bowl, last December, Riley didn’t think he’d ever “seen an injury like that in a bowl practice.” When USC won that winter game, over Louisville, it was “as fun a win as I can remember as head coach.” Ten months later, as USC has crumpled in a string of increasingly confounding losses, it’s become a stretch Riley didn’t know if he could “compare it to anything I’ve experienced in my career.”

All blanket statements. And all certainly true, in his lived experience as a head coach. In this grand scape of college football, when program icons keep kicking until their hair whitens in their 60s and 70s, Riley is still a truly fresh face.

Still, with just eight seasons as a head coach under his belt.

Still, with plenty of road ahead to evolve.

How he embraces that road, as he’s hit the worst stretch of his still-young career, will likely shape USC’s future for the rest of this decade.

“I’ve asked everyone else in the program to continue to get better,” Riley said last Thursday, asked in what ways he felt he could continue to grow. “So, I try to self-evaluate as much as I can.”

“I’ve leaned on a few people on the outside to give me their evaluations of what I’m doing and where I can get better that have been very, very helpful, and I’m going to continue my path to growth just like I expect from everybody in this program.”

Along with his reputation as an offensive genius, Riley has built a public reputation as a coach stuck in his ways, founded largely upon his at-times prickly demeanor (remember Untrained Eye-gate, folks?) when challenged by media. That, however, is untrue, and frankly unfair, because Riley’s entire meteoric rise in this business has been built on his ability to change his ways.

After growing as a Mike Leach disciple in a system that had completely cast off the entire tight end position, Riley learned at East Carolina and Oklahoma to feature his tight ends heavily as run-blockers and pass-game safety valves.

He separated himself ahead of the pack trying to race from Leach’s shadow, peers say, because of his ingenuity in incorporating a lethal run-game into his version of Leach’s vaunted Air Raid.

He made wholescale philosophical changes to USC’s identity as a program, this offseason, bringing in a completely new and standout defensive staff after years of chatter that Riley didn’t care about defense.

But as Riley continues to publicly put blame on himself for USC’s (3-4, 1-4 Big Ten) current struggles — “I gotta get this team to play better,” he said after Saturday’s most recent gut-punch in Maryland — the same issues that have plagued USC throughout his tenure continue to be increasingly exposed in a slide into the Big Ten. For years, USC has too often lost battles in key moments at the line of scrimmage. For years, Riley’s late-game offensive management has confused, when he’s turned away from the run-game. For years, USC has shown an at-times complete inability to close games.

“I mean, there’s not a magic remedy,” Riley said Thursday, part of a response when asked why it’s been hard for USC to finish games.

USC, though, is paying him upwards of $10 million a season, and investing millions upon millions more into a new performance center and their NIL collective, to find one. Quickly.

As much fire is under his seat, at the moment, USC likely cannot physically afford the cost of firing Riley and starting fresh. Neither, perhaps, would the university want to. He is still just three years into his tenure, and a Southern born-and-raised coach is still adjusting to this new landscape of college football in Southern California, as he made expressively clear on Thursday.

“This job is very different,” Riley said. “It’s one of the most unique jobs in college sports, and for mostly tremendous reasons, very positive reasons. But it is different. And having to adapt to that, and trying to be the best coach that I can be for USC and for USC football, it’s certainly been a learning process. No doubt about it.”

He loved the challenge of building USC back, he made clear. It was invigorating. It was exciting.

“Part of the fun in it is, you’ve got to hang in there, you’ve got to believe in what you’re doing, you’ve got to believe in what you’re building,” Riley continued. “And I very much do here.”

He needs to show it — that USC can grow out of this hole, that he himself can — to continue inspiring belief in his rebuild.