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It's fair to say not everyone is a fan of USC football coach Lincoln Riley.
While Riley is particularly unpopular in the state of Oklahoma, there are likely quite a few in Southern California who don't feel quite positively about the Trojans' head coach either. And that's because Riley has not delivered much since arriving in Los Angeles and signing a reported 10-year, $110 million contract.
So when The Athletic ranked all 100+ FBS coaches, it's probably not that surprising Riley is not nearly as high as his overall coaching resume would probably indicate.
“I think the return on investment there is really poor, considering what they've done and how much they spent,” an agent told The Athletic. “Maybe there's a lot of fingers in the pie there, but they just haven't got what they thought they were bargaining for.”
The Athletic's Chris Vannini characterized Riley as “trending downward at USC.”
Riley enters what could be a pivotal season in his tenure with the Trojans. This will be his fourth year as USC's coach, and every season so far, he has won fewer games than he did the season before.
After an 11-3 debut season in which Caleb Williams, who followed Riley from Oklahoma to USC, won the Heisman Trophy, the Trojans won eight games in 2023 despite Williams returning, and then they won seven games last season, which featured five frustratingly heartbreaking losses by seven points or less.
Although there is optimism that some of the bad breaks will reverse course in 2025, USC could very well find itself far down in the Big Ten standings once again. The Trojans are largely expected to start the season off with three or four wins in a row — they play Missouri State, Georgia Southern, Purdue, and Michigan State — before visiting Champaign and an Illinois team that won 10 games last season.
USC then hosts Michigan, which handed Riley and the Trojans their first loss of 2024 despite not having a reliable quarterback. The Michigan game is followed up with a rivalry matchup with Notre Dame in South Bend and a trip to Lincoln to face Nebraska. USC closes the regular season out with home games vs. Northwestern and Iowa, a road trip to Oregon, and hosting archrival UCLA at the Coliseum.
