Lincoln Riley Would Like For You To Zip It.
P.S. He still doesn't want to play Notre Dame
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It’s a little strange to get finger-wagged by Lincoln Riley, a coach whose record has gone backward in each season that he has planted himself at USC. But Riley would like all of you to know that you’re behind the times, and also that you probably don’t appreciate just how healthy the sport of college football is right now.
Further: You can shut up about USC trying to quit its rivalry with Notre Dame.
Riley didn’t say that part exactly. But the Trojans’ coach has made it clear a couple of times now that for USC, playing in the Big Ten Conference and scheduling an independent powerhouse like Notre Dame every year isn’t the math he’s looking for. After all, taking a loss to the Irish could damage Troy’s national title aspirations. (They were 7-5 and 6-6 the past two regular seasons, but hey.)
What’s that, you say? Trash a historic, tradition-soaked rivalry so that you can chase a spot in the watered-down, everybody-gets-in College Football Playoff?
I mean, totally. Yes. That’s the Riley angle here.
For now, we’re making Riley the focal point of this conversation moreso than USC as a whole. Couple of reasons for that: One, it’s understood in Los Angeles that USC’s athletic director would like to keep the Notre Dame rivalry going, while Riley sure as heck doesn’t. Two, Riley just keeps talking about it.
That USC would give Riley such agency, to blithely dismiss a nearly century-old rivalry because it might get in the way of a bitcoin-era playoff bid, is a testament to the collective spinelessness of a university that was once a mighty force in college football. But the C-suites knew what they were signing up for when they handed Jed Clampett money to Riley to leave Oklahoma in 2022. Riley views this — and everything else connected with his tenure — as a binary choice, with no nuance and little reflection required. It’s a very modern take.