If you were surprised by USC this past weekend, not in the fact that they won easily, but more about how they won we should digress for a bit and talk about some Oklahoma history and new USC Head Coach Lincoln Riley’s past. Not the history that goes back to the run-first days of Head Coach Barry Switzer from 1973 to 1988 which started and ended with violations but in between won 90% of their games and a national title. Not the next nine years either where they went through three head coaches looking for a return to the glory days. But the history that began when the Oklahoma AD decided to hire Florida’s Defensive Coordinator, Bob Stoops, as the Sooners new head coach. Although finishing his first year with a record of just 7-5, it was a big improvement considering that the three year record of the previous head coach had been 12-22. Using the spread designed by his Offensive Coordinator Mike Leach—yes, that Mike Leach—they outscored their first three opponents 132 points to 31 and lost at South Bend to Notre Dame by only four points. It was impressive enough that Mike Leach got the head coaching job of the Texas Tech Red Raiders where between 2000-2009 he became the winningest coach in Texas Tech history.
As we know from watching Leach during his years at Washington State he is known for what is called the Air Raid, a pass first spread offense that he developed with Hal Mumme while working as Offensive Coordinator under Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan, Valdosta State, and Kentucky. But what does any of this have to do with USC and Lincoln Riley? Well, Lincoln Riley was a walk-on QB at Texas Tech under Leach. In 2003 he became his student assistant, then graduate assistant and then his receiver’s coach. When Leach left, not of his own accord, so did Riley to become the offensive coordinator for Ruffin McNeil at East Carolina University. McNeil had also worked under Leach at Texas Tech. In January of 2015 Lincoln Riley got hired by Bob Stoops at Oklahoma to serve as Offensive Coordinator, the same job his mentor Mike Leach held during Stoops’ first year.
In Riley’s first year at Oklahoma his offense ranked in the Top 10 nationally and they went to the college football national playoff. He won the Broyles Award as the nation’s top assistant coach and in less than two years was named head coach upon Stoops’ retirement announcement. In 2017 he won the Big-12 Conference Championship and went into the national playoff ranked No. 2, loosing to Georgia in double overtime. He won four consecutive Big-12 Championships, tutored three QB’s currently in the NFL, and produced 28 NFL draft picks and upon leaving to take the USC head coaching job had acheived the highest winning percentage in Oklahoma history.
Back in April of this year Lincoln Riley was interviewed by Ryan Young of TrojanSports and had this to say about this USC offense: “I hope at the end . . . that it’s really good and really successful, and wins a bunch of games. It’s hard to say, I would say very versatile is probably a fair word. The Air Raid stuff came from all of our background at Texas Tech. Over the last seven years we’ve (Oklahoma) had the highest yards per carry of any college football team in the country, we’ve ran the ball at a high level for a long time, so I don’t know if Air Raid really fits anymore to be honest. What we’ve tried to build is something, I think there’s two parts of it for us. We want to find out who our best personnel is each year, and we want to attack with our strengths as best we can. And I think the other goal for us is you want to build an offense that’s able to win a lot of different ways. Can you move the ball down the field 80 yards with not much time left, can you get in the 4-minute mode and run out the clock against a tough opponent and not give their offense a chance to get it back, can you pick up tough goal line plays, can you convert on third and long? You get played differently. Different [teams] try to take different things away and attack you different ways—do you have answers within what your guys do well to be able to attack people knowing that the game’s going to be so different each week?”
They certainly seemed to have all the answers this past Saturday getting off to a great start with a 66-14 destruction of Rice while scoring the most points since the days of Pete Carroll. Sophomore QB Caleb Williams who entered the transfer portal from Oklahoma after Riley was hired was almost perfect on the day, connecting on over 85% of his passes for 249 yards and 2 TD’s—both to Junior WR Jordan Addison–with no interceptions while also rushing six times for 68 yards. Freshman QB Miller Moss who also picked up some playing time added another 81 yards to the 330 yard total in the air going 6-for-7. On the ground the Trojans rushed 28 times for 208 yards and 4 TD’s, two by Senior RB Austin Jones, a Stanford transfer, and one a piece by Freshman RB Raleek Brown and another by Junior RB Darwin Barlow.
The Rice QB’s combined for 134 yards on 14-of-28, but didn’t connect in the end zone and worse yet threw up four interceptions, three of which went for TD’s, one a piece by Senior Line Backers Shane Lee and and Ralen Goforth with the other picked off by Sophomore Defensive Back Calen Bullock who ran it back 93 yards to the house. The Trojan defense combined for 58 tackles, 4 sacks, and 8 tackles for loss. The AP recap for ESPN really brings the point home regarding the potency of the Trojan offense when they point out that, “USC scored on every one of their possessions through the first three quarters.” The Trojans hit the road for Palo Alto to take on Stanford next week.