Lincoln Riley would be a better fit at UCF than he's ever been at USC

USC head coach Lincoln Riley is reportedly a target of UCF's head coaching search, according to Bruce Feldman and Antonio Morales of The Athletic.

While it feels like a bit of a pipe dream for the Knights to land USC's head coach, it's not outside the realm of possibility, either. Sure, the move would be pricey (while Riley's contract details aren't known, it's believed to be in the realm of a 10-year, $100 million deal), but Riley would provide exactly the kind of splash UCF has been trying to make since they jumped to the Big 12.

The book on Riley as a coach has more or less been written at this point: fantastic offensive coach with a knack for developing both quarterbacks and wide receivers. He's a good recruiter, but not a great one. His defenses tend to leave something to be desired, regardless of who his defensive coordinator is. And he struggles to settle into a media environment that he can't fully control. He ran the media ecosystem in Norman, and was able to dictate the terms of engagement, and was unable to do the same in Los Angeles. In the right environment, he can get you into the playoff conversation, even if he doesn't get you in every season, and doesn't quite have what it takes to actually win one.

It's clear at this point that Los Angeles and USC aren't the right environment for Riley and his coaching style.

The Trojans have regressed in every season under Riley; they went 11-3 in year one, 8-5 last year, and stumbled their way to 6-6 this year. He's struggled to make a real recruiting impact, due in large part to a fractious NIL system that Riley has not been able to wrangle. Recruiting has been solid, but unspectacular, with a pair of top 20 classes and a top 10 class under his belt. He's bristled at the level of media scrutiny and attention, and has yet to fully figure out how to build a championship caliber defense in the Coliseum.

But where USC has not been the proper environment for Riley to thrive, UCF might provide exactly what he needs.

The Knights are eager to make a big splash in the Big 12. They sit smack dab in the fertile Florida recruiting grounds, and unlike USC, UCF's NIL apparatus is fully spun up and ready to roll. They recently announced that they'd be abolishing their NIL collective and doing all of their NIL work in-house, giving Riley an edge in terms of keeping everything under his control. UCF has the money to hang in the new world order of college football, and they're eager to spend it to get them to the top.

On top of that, UCF is in a very different place than USC was in terms of its program's position in the sport. Where USC is a faded power trying to regain its past glory, a school with the expectation of dominance season in and season out, UCF is eager for consistent success, even if it comes at a slightly lower level. They'd be absolutely thrilled with Riley's ceiling of 10-11 wins and a mid-level playoff seed in most seasons, and his defensive deficiencies would be more eagerly overlooked than they ever were in either Norman or Los Angeles. And with a lower-pressure media market, Riley's authoritarian approach to the press would be less chafing than it was at USC, or even at Oklahoma.

I'm not saying Riley will leave the Trojans for UCF. The price tag to get him is going to be astronomical, and the Knights could very easily decide it's not worth the money to bring him to Orlando. But if he did, it wouldn't be a shock to see him thrive. He might not get them to the promised land, but he'd absolutely get them closer to their goal, and to a place where they'd be thrilled to be: consistent, regular contention at the top of the sport.

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