USA TODAY Sports feature story looks at evolution of Lincoln Riley

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The offseason in college football always seems long. This year, it's longer at USC because the enormity of the coming 2026 season is impossible to ignore. Lincoln Riley and Chad Bowden are itching to cross the threshold and finally lift the Trojans to the College Football Playoff. It feels like a make-or-break year for Riley and USC. Entering a season in which USC carries ample amounts of both pressure and potential, USA TODAY Sports college football reporter John Brice wrote a highly compelling feature story on the USC program.

There is so much to take from this story. We'll talk about it for several days (we have all the time in the world in May, several months before the start of the season). Let's start with this passage in which Brice talks to Chad Bowden:

“'Lincoln’s ability to adapt, in the new college football era, since I’ve gotten here, he’s evolved and he’s hungry to win at the highest levels,' said Chad Bowden, USC’s general manager. 'He’s had to make really hard decisions within his program, but he’s made those decisions, and USC is better for it. I think he’s evolved, and things weren’t on his plate eight years ago that now are on his plate and he’s done a great job of evolving in the new era.'

"Riley also is proving unafraid of clearing his plate of staff not meeting expectations. Patterson, Bowden, strength coach Trumain Carroll, special teams coordinator Mike Ekeler and defensive pass game coordinator Paul Gonzales are among the notable newcomers in the past 16 months.

"Bowden arguably is the most striking example of Riley’s personal rebuild, the one the Trojans need if they are to make their first College Football Playoff appearance since its 2014 inception and hydrate a 20-year drought of not even competing for a national title. Under Bowden, USC enters the 2026 season with college football’s consensus No. 1 recruiting class as well as perhaps the nation’s most experienced team of returnees."

We start with Chad Bowden's comments because we have to ask this question: Has Lincoln Riley truly evolved, or is Chad Bowden the one who has created the real evolution at USC? Riley struggled massively in recruiting, particularly in Southern California, until Chad Bowden came along. It has always felt that Bowden, not Riley, put USC's house in order. The idea that Lincoln Riley has evolved might contain some truth. Brice rightly points to the increasing willingness to clear out underperforming coaches and seek upgrades. Riley is less of a loyalist and more of a searcher for quality. That's true. However, there are so many other aspects of USC's operations in which it seems Bowden, not Riley, was the prime mover.

Whatever you think about these topics, however, one thing is clear: Riley needs to regain his fastball as a coach and return to the Oklahoma standard of success. If he doesn't, any talk of Riley's evolution will fade into the mist at USC.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USA TODAY goes inside Lincoln Riley, USC football's attempt to rise

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