USC fans have to admit: In 2023, Oklahoma fans were right about Lincoln Riley

The relationship between USC and Oklahoma as football programs and as football communities is a constant point of interest in Los Angeles and Norman.

Tensions between these two schools have rarely existed over the broader scope of college football history. Tensions briefly emerged in the 2003 and 2004 college football seasons. In the 2003 season, OU took what should have been USC’s spot in the BCS National Championship Game at the 2004 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans against LSU. In the 2004 season, OU and USC met on the field in the title game at the 2005 Orange Bowl in Miami.

That’s pretty much it.

These teams did meet in a memorable 1981 game in the Los Angeles Coliseum — a game which helped Marcus Allen win the Heisman Trophy — and they met in Norman as the other half of the home-and-home series. However, neither school was at its very best in those two years. Nebraska was the best Big Eight program at the time, and Washington was the best Pac-10 program at the very end of John Robinson’s first go-round at USC.

For several decades, USC and Oklahoma fans didn’t really have cause or reason to constantly compare themselves to the other.

As soon as Lincoln Riley made the move from Norman to Los Angeles in November of 2021, that all changed. Today, every game and every season offer reason for the schools, their fans, and their beat writers and commentators to look at the other side and see what’s going on.

In 2022, USC had the obvious and substantial upper hand. The Trojans won 11 games while Brent Venables had to sort through a mess with the Sooners.

In 2023, everything has flipped. OU looks like a rising power while USC is in a state of disrepair.

USC fans might not want to admit it, but if they’re facing reality, they have to: Oklahoma fans, at least for 2023, were right about Lincoln Riley. Let’s go through these details — not to stir up emotions, but to maybe learn something about what Riley has to do to get USC back on track:

KNOW THIS NAME: JERRY SCHMIDT (PICTURED BELOW)

Jerry Schmidt might be the most important reason Lincoln Riley is slipping at USC, relative to what he did at Oklahoma. We’ll explain this as we go along.

JERRY SCHMIDT BASIC FACTS

Schmidt served under Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and worked under Riley in 2017, but Riley wanted his own guy — Bennie Wylie — for 2018. Schmidt went to Texas A&M for a few years, but when Riley left for USC, Brent Venables brought Schmidt back to OU in 2022. You’re seeing Oklahoma playing tough, physical football under Schmidt’s guidance as strength coach once again.

SCHMIDT IN YEAR 2

A lot is often said about coaches needing a second year to more fully implement what they want to do. It’s true for strength and conditioning as well as for head coaches and coordinators. In Year 1 of his second OU stint, Schmidt was laying the groundwork for what he wanted to do under Venables, but the roster wasn’t there, and the habits weren’t fully established. The Sooners struggled in 2022 but — with a full offseason — were able to restore Schmidt’s approach. It’s paying off for Oklahoma.

BENNIE WYLIE AT USC

The gap in quality between Jerry Schmidt and Bennie Wylie certainly appears to be large, and it certainly appears to be a central reason for Oklahoma surging while USC flounders. Trojan fans can ignore this or choose to wrestle with it and maybe, just maybe, concede that Oklahoma fans have a point here.

INHERITED QUALITIES

It’s true that in 2022 at USC, Lincoln Riley turned over a lot of the roster and gained crucial pieces for his successful team. Jordan Addison, Travis Dye, and Caleb Williams were all part of the Riley transformation of USC. However, a few elite offensive linemen were already part of the USC program when Riley came aboard. Riley inherited those linemen, who worked under other strength coaches and were taught by 2021 offensive line coach Clay McGuire, the best assistant coach Clay Helton had during his bumpy USC tenure. Andrew Vorhees and Brett Neilon weren’t transfer portal pickups. They were the in-house stars, the leaders who were essential to giving USC some muscle and dependability on the 2022 offensive line. That’s really not something one can attribute to Bennie Wylie’s influence at USC.

TRANSITIONS AND COMPARISONS

You can see where this is all going, right?

Brent Venables inherited a difficult situation and was not nearly as deft in the transfer portal in the 2022 offseason as Lincoln Riley was. OU was set up to fail in 2022, and Venables needed time for Jerry Schmidt’s strength program to take effect because he had a bunch of players who weren’t used to that regimen when he took over the Sooners.

Conversely, Riley’s instant portal infusion of talent set up USC well for 2022, and he inherited offensive linemen coached well by Clay McGuire. The portal pickup of Bobby Haskins from Virginia also proved to be huge. Bennie Wylie’s strength program wasn’t all that central or transformative for these linemen. They were already seasoned and developed by other previous coaches.

BENNIE WYLIE IN YEAR 2

Compare and contrast Oklahoma in Year 2 of Jerry Schmidt’s strength and conditioning program versus USC in Year 2 of Bennie Wylie’s strength and conditioning program.

It’s night and day. One program has advanced considerably while the other has regressed considerably.

With Vorhees and Neilon — linemen not developed principally or centrally by Wylie — now gone from the Trojans, you’re not seeing the toughness USC had in 2022. It’s a softer, weaker team.

Schmidt, on the other hand, has the Sooners playing muscular and very successful football in the trenches again. This is not an accident, folks.

OFFENSIVE LINE COACHING

When Lincoln Riley came very close to reaching the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in the 2017 season (OU lost a squeaker to Georgia in overtime in a classic 2018 Rose Bowl), he had Bill Bedenbaugh as his offensive line coach. When Riley made two more playoff appearances in 2018 and 2019, Bedenbaugh was his offensive line coach.

Those 2018 and 2019 teams weren’t quite as good as 2017, but notably, the offensive linemen on those teams started their OU careers with Jerry Schmidt as their strength coach. They received a foundational boost from Schmidt, so when Wylie came in as Riley’s strength coach in 2018, the negative effect was reduced.

Being coached by Bedenbaugh also reduced any negative influence Wylie might have provided when Schmidt left. That’s a key point Sooner fans would be quick to mention as a reason Riley kept winning 10-11 games after Schmidt’s departure. He still had Bedenbaugh as offensive line coach.

BILL BEDENBAUGH STAYS AT OU

We might look back on Bill Bedenbaugh’s decision to stay at Oklahoma — and not join Riley at USC — as a huge development for both programs.

Even if Bennie Wylie is a much worse strength coach than Jerry Schmidt, Bedenbaugh — had he come to USC — might have been able to minimize the negative impact for Riley.

Staying at OU has made the Sooners so much better and stronger than they likely would have been if Bedenbaugh left for Los Angeles.

JOSH HENSON

Josh Henson did a really, really good job in 2022 with the USC offensive line. However, as we explained above, the 2022 Trojans had veteran leaders Riley and Henson inherited. Andrew Vorhees and Brett Neilon carried that offensive line, something we can see this season with Justin Dedich struggling to replicate his 2022 performance.

There is always a need to monitor how much the quality of coaching changes — for better or worse — from Year 1 to Year 2. Can a staff maintain quality and performance after those inherited first-year stars leave? In Year 2, a staff’s culture and methods become more evident because there are fewer inherited players on the roster. Year 2 is more a reflection of the staff’s work and influence as the transitional first year recedes into the past.

There’s zero debate about this: Oklahoma’s Year 2 under Venables, Bedenbaugh, and Schmidt has followed a trajectory which is dramatically different from USC’s Year 2 under Riley, Henson, and Wylie. The gap is very stark.

ALEX GRINCH

It’s wild that we haven’t even mentioned Alex Grinch until now, but that’s because the Notre Dame game — and the season — turned sour for reasons completely removed from Grinch and his defense.

The USC offensive line has turned out to be soft, much like Grinch’s defense. Strength and conditioning — plus offensive line coaching — have become central concerns alongside the defense.

USC has problems on defense to be sure, but the ultimate problem with the program might not be Grinch; it might be that Riley-coached teams are soft if they don’t have Bill Bedenbaugh coaching the offensive line or Jerry Schmidt having had at least one year to work with players (which he did at OU in 2017 under Riley, setting the table for 2018 and 2019 even after Schmidt left for Texas A&M).

BOTTOM LINE

Lincoln Riley has to make significant changes in the way he does business at USC. It could be that he has to fire Grinch and Wylie at season’s end, and ride with Josh Henson for one more year. He might need to fire all three men and seek upgrades at all three positions on his staff.

At the very least, though, this much seems clear: Either Alex Grinch is the problem — not developing his players nearly well enough to give USC the best possible chance of winning — or Bennie Wylie is the problem as a deficient strength coach. Either the defensive teaching or the strength of players is holding USC back. Maybe it’s a little of both, but it can’t be neither. It has to be at least one of the two.

If Lincoln Riley is unwilling to fire at least one of Grinch or Wylie, he is truly not serious about winning championships. One could very reasonably say he needs to fire both guys, but he must fire at least one.

Henson is a little harder to evaluate, but at the very least, Henson should be coaching for his job over the next month. If USC gets dump-trucked by Utah, Oregon and Washington, that will be a clear sign the Trojans need a better offensive line coach.

THE RILEY FILES IN FULL -- GREAT TIME TO LISTEN IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE SO

CONCLUSION

This is a time for USC fans to re-evaluate Lincoln Riley’s time at Oklahoma, understanding what went well and what went wrong, and why.

Riley had certain things in place at Oklahoma which he did not maintain. Yet, a few key ingredients remained which helped him continue to succeed. Those ingredients do not exist at USC, and for the first time in Riley’s career, there are signs of real slippage.

Oklahoma fans watched Riley overachieve in 2022 at USC, and they had to be quiet until the Pac-12 Championship Game and the Cotton Bowl, which brought back all of Riley’s demons. In 2022, USC fans saw the best of Lincoln Riley and had good reason to think the Trojans were on their way to greatness.

In 2023, though, Oklahoma fans were right. USC fans might not like admitting it, but ignoring the truth helps no one.

Lincoln Riley has to confront the truth, ugly as it is, and make the changes he has so far been unwilling to make in his career. That was one of the central points raised in our Riley Files series from last year.

We have arrived at that moment of truth at USC.

Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire