Lincoln Riley has a great O-line at USC in 2022, but the future raises its own questions
On The Riley Files, Oklahoma insider Kegan Reneau made the point that after the Sooners changed strength coaches, offensive line quality decreased. The current USC strength coach Lincoln Riley brought to him from Norman is Bennie Wiley. Reneau said the Sooners’ offensive line got worse when Wiley took over the strength and conditioning program.
True, the OU offensive line wasn’t bad under Wiley, but it wasn’t as good as the elite 2017 and 2018 offensive lines the Sooners had. This point merits attention at USC, even though the 2022 offensive line looks fantastic thus far this season.
The big question: After this year’s proven, veteran offensive linemen leave the program, how will Riley cultivate new O-line stars at USC?
“Oklahoma fans have said a lot about the program under Lincoln Riley in the last couple years,” Reneau said, “but the one thing that obviously sticks out to me and to anybody that’s watched Oklahoma the last three years was offensive line play. They just weren’t as nasty as that 2017 or 2018 group. They weren’t as physical. They weren’t as mean. This was the offensive line at Oklahoma, the 2019, 2020, 2021 groups I’m really talking about here. That was the first group that Bennie Wiley was responsible, not Jerry Schmidt and the old strength conditioning regime.”
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