USC's Lincoln Riley addresses rumors about possible departure

"I tell 'em I'm a USC Trojan," Riley said. "I'm at the place I want to be. So, that's a non-starter. It's a non-issue. I'm home."

Riley has not only been recently mentioned as someone who could be a candidate to fill a head coach opening for a team in the NFL, but on Wednesday, The Athletic's Bruce Feldman, Antonio Morales and Ralph Russo reported that UCF has recently "inquired about the availability" of Riley to potentially become its new head coach.

Based on the answer he gave at his news conference on Wednesday, one can assume that Riley won't be leaving the school to become the Knights' next head coach.

That might be upsetting for some Trojans fans to hear after how disappointing the team was during the 2024 season. But the USC head coach deserves an opportunity to show that he can turn the program around in 2025.

The Trojans went 11-3 and were ranked as high as No. 4 in Riley's first season as the team's head coach in 2022. USC's record fell to 8-5 in year two with Riley leading the way, and then this season, the school finished with an underwhelming 6-6 record.

Having fewer wins than the previous season in each of the last two years is certainly not how anyone had envisioned how things would go for the Trojans after all the success the team experienced in Riley's first season with the program.

But to be fair to Riley, there were multiple factors that played a role in USC finishing the 2024 regular season with a 6-6 record.

Among them, this was the head coach's first year with the Trojans without star quarterback Caleb Williams starting under center, and it was also the school's first season as a member of the Big Ten.

Of the four schools that left the Pac-12 and joined the Big Ten before the start of the 2024 campaign (Oregon, USC, UCLA, Washington), only Oregon (12-0) had a better record than USC during the regular season.

Riley needs to spend the offseason building a roster that is better suited for the physical brand of football that Big Ten teams typically play.

If he can do that, USC will have the potential to return to the level of success that it experienced during its current head coach's first year with the school in 2022.