‘It’s time’: Lincoln Riley confident USC ready for CFP run

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — USC Coach Lincoln Riley hasn’t led the Trojans to the College Football Playoff, however he nonetheless is aware of what a playoff workforce appears like.

He says he believes his workforce has all of the elements to interrupt by means of this coming season. Riley, who’s 35-18 at USC after guiding Oklahoma to the CFP in every of his first 4 seasons as Sooners coach, stated the expectations are clear for his fifth season with the Trojans.

“We have absolutely taken steps now,” Riley stated in an interview with ESPN and CBS on the Big Ten spring conferences. “Honestly, now it’s just time to go do it. It’s time. The program’s ready for it.”

Riley famous the feedback he made earlier within the offseason about USC’s championship window opening, regardless of three or extra losses in every of his first 4 seasons. He’s not backing down.

“I caught some flack for saying… that I thought we had opened up a window, but it’s just true,” Riley stated. “It’s how I feel. And I feel like I’ve got a little bit of credibility in terms of having been in part of some places that did that at a pretty high level.

“So I’ve no less than slightly little bit of an concept of ​​what I’m speaking about.”

Riley pointed to a number of causes, together with a roster with the kind of depth alongside each strains that USC has lacked previously. After USC “exceeded expectations,” according to Riley, and reached the Pac-12 championship game in its first season, the team made a push in the transfer portal to take the next step but “missed on some key guys,” Riley said. He added that the misses probably cost USC high school players it could have developed.

The team spent the past offseason focused on retaining and finalizing the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, which includes five top-35 players and 19 in the SC Next 300. Riley also hired Gary Patterson, whom he faced for years in the Big 12, as defensive coordinator, a move Riley said he had hoped to make several years ago.

USC is also set to move into its new on-campus football performance center this summer.

“I’ve informed folks, there was nearly like a sense while you first acquired right here, you are standing in entrance of a dam and there is simply leaks, and also you plug one leak and one other one pops,” Riley said. “It’s not good, however there’s not many leaks any extra.”

USC will face a schedule that doesn’t include rival Notre Dame but does feature Ohio State, Oregon and Washington at home, and trips to both Indiana and Penn State. Riley says he thinks he and the program have grown to the point where they can navigate the gauntlet.

“The years right here, going by means of all we have gone by means of, and the problem right here, the chance, it is made me loads higher coach,” Riley said. “I’m loads higher coach than at any level throughout the years in Oklahoma. I’ve undoubtedly discovered and grown loads, and there is plenty of issues that I’ve discovered now that I want I had identified again then, or been higher at.”