Time for USC to Move On From Lincoln Riley? + Week 6 Picks

Rece Davis (0:00)

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The gigantic game in the SEC is also in the face of a storm. A bit of trivia from the Red River rivalry that might surprise you and State Fair fair. Glad to have you with us on the College GameDay podcast. Thanks, Davis, Pete Thamel and Dan Wetzel. Guys, you look at this schedule this weekend, there are a couple of games that really stand out. I think there are opportunities for teams to prove themselves to see who they are. We'll find out if Nebraska is really a contender when they take on Indiana. We'll find out if UCLA is legit. They don't have to win these games. They have to look competitive. UCLA against Oregon, Nebraska against Indiana. But one of the fascinating games of the weekend is USC and Penn State, and not necessarily because both of these teams have some degree of struggle. Now, USC is only lost once, but there are some topics swirling around, particularly USC and the time of year we reach when people start wondering, Pete, are we going in the right direction with our coaching staff and the progress of our program?

Pete Thamel (2:20)

Erie, USC is fascinating in this moment in time because there's obviously unrest about Lincoln Riley. It's been an awkward fit from the start there. He has won, certainly, right? By most metrics and standards, Lincoln Riley has been a good college football coach there, right?

But what he has not been is what they hired him to do. He has clearly not been a championship football coach. In one hand, you say, okay, he's won 68 percent of his games, just under 68 percent of his games. That's obviously excellent generally, right? But they hired him at Oklahoma, where he won just under 85 percent of his games, right? Led them to, I believe, two playoff appearances while he was there. So the difficulty comes now that you're sitting here in year five of Lincoln Riley at USC. You have no wins over top 10 teams. You are five and 14 against AP top 25 teams. The question is, do you make a move? So Lincoln Riley was given a monster 10-year deal. Remember that crazy carousel where Brian Kelly went from Notre Dame to LSU, and Lincoln went from Oklahoma there. It was a 10-year deal. He's gotten one automatic year extended because they went to the PAC 12 championship game his first year. So that triggered an 11th year. So that means right now, that deal would basically go...

Three, two, one. That means right now, if USC wanted to fire Lincoln Riley at the end of this year, the buyout would be $70 million. That would be the second biggest of all time.

It obviously is just a giant expense. Now, the ties here with them playing Penn State's fascinating, Dan. Because Penn State was going to pay James Franklin 49 million. Well, they only ended up paying him nine million. Because James Franklin is a very good coach, he wouldn't have got another job. To the surprise of no one, James Franklin, excellent college football coach, went and got a really good job at Virginia Tech, he's done well there so far. Controversial field goal aside, like he's clearly given that place some juice. So with Lincoln Riley, he could go get a Big 12 job if something opens in the Big 12, like Colorado. I think a lot of people would have said Baylor until last week when they double-nickled Arizona State.

But still, 70 million might get cut to 40 million. It's still 40 million, it's still a lot of money. Now, USC has more billionaires per capita. The other thing as this carousel is coming to focus, Dan, is this. Who would they hire? There is no slam dunk, easy, oh my gosh, there's a Chris Peterson at board. There's just no obvious inflection point here, Urban Meyer at Utah in 04, whatever. There's no stand on the table, he's the obvious hire hire there. And we have seen very early from Penn State, what happens when you do a championship or bust firing and you bring in a coach and there's going to be an adjustment. Now I'm not giving up on Matt Campbell, before Halloween, his first season. He's had too much of a track record, but it just generally shows even in this era where you can go to the portal, get guys, whatever, there is going to be an adjustment period. And Penn State is in that adjustment period and it's not going well, Dan.