With former Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley failing to live up to expectations at USC, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum heavily criticized the Trojans’ coach, calling him a loser in the process.
Finebaum mentioned that had he been the Athletic Director at USC, he would have fired Riley, saying, “The one thing LA hates is a loser, and right now, I think Lincoln Riley looks like a loser.”
Finebaum detailed his thoughts on First Take regarding Lincoln Riley’s consistent struggles on the defensive side of the ball and went to great lengths to say that he ran away from SEC Football at Oklahoma.
“I think he has an enormous amount to prove because, quite frankly, I think he’s been a disaster,” Finebaum said. “He ran away. He did not want to deal with the Southeastern Conference at OU. He took what he saw was an easier course, so he goes out to Southern Cal. He takes Caleb Williams. Good first year, but since then everything has gone wrong. I thought last year was one of the worst coaching jobs I’ve ever seen.”
After posting an impressive season in Year One, with sophomore quarterback Caleb Williams taking home the Heisman Trophy, USC struggled in Riley’s second year. The program totaled an 8-5 overall record and a 5-4 conference record, capped off with a win over Louisville in the Holiday Bowl.
“Quite frankly, had I been the Athletics Director at Southern Cal, I would’ve fired Lincoln Riley because he’s yet to show, after many years as a head coach, that he knows anything about defense,” Finebaum said. “He’s gone through defensive coordinators. He just simply couldn’t handle it. And now things are going to be five times worse in the Big Ten.
Riley will be facing an uphill battle to succeed in a new conference as his team is joining the Big Ten in the latest round of conference realignment. The Trojans are joined by fellow former conference members UCLA, Oregon, and Washington in the league and will have to meet some of the top teams in the Big Ten as well.
“I look at Lincoln Riley in totality, and quite frankly, I think he’s a fraudulent elite coach,” Finebaum said. “He’s not an elite coach. He lived off of Bob Stoops’ players at Oklahoma. He mastered the transfer portal, taking walk-ons as transfers and making them Heisman trophy candidates, but there’s so much more to college football than offense, and he’s never been able to get it. The one thing LA hates is a loser, and right now, I think Lincoln Riley looks like a loser.”
