On the day the “Conference of Champions” crumbled, Lincoln Riley strode in front of the press backdrop on USC’s Howard Jones Field and delivered an opening statement before any members of the media could open their mouths.
First, the Trojans’ football coach endorsed the rousing success of Tuesday’s Dave Nichol health check – a USC-sponsored health clinic for football coaches held in honor of late USC receivers coach Nichol – and announced the Trojans would be sending out details of the check to “every other college football program” with the hope it will become a national trend.
Then, drawing an invisible sword and cutting down any prying questions before they even materialized, the kingmaker turned his attention to the plight of the Pac-12 and boom of the Big Ten.
“I’m sure a lot of the questions here will be about – I’ve seen all the news with, Big Ten has expanded, or whatever happened,” Riley said after Friday’s practice. “I just want to say our university, our leadership, made the decision to go into the future with the Big Ten after this season because it was the best thing for USC.”
“That was not contingent,” Riley continued, “on any other schools, on anything else … so my reaction today is, I have no reaction.”
Not contingent on any other schools: a direct address, it seemed, of any belief that USC wanted to leave some fellow West Coast competition behind with the move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten. And a direct address, it seemed, of any belief that USC would care about Friday’s stunning news that Oregon and Washington were also jumping ship.
But the truth remains: Oregon, long the pesky Phil Knight-funded thorn in USC’s side amid the dogfight of Southern California recruiting, isn’t going anywhere. And any leg up in local recruiting that the Trojans’ Big Ten move had earned them – say, the promise of more national exposure and exciting competition – is gone.
“Now, it’s on equal ground,” said Los Alamitos High football coach Ray Fenton, who coached highly-touted USC freshmen Malachi Nelson and Makai Lemon.
Fenton asks the same question of every player who comes through his clubhouse that aspires to play college football: what’s your dream school?
The answer, Fenton said, is almost always the same. Not the campus with its expanse of brick and Trojan glamour 25 miles north.
It – to Fenton’s inexplicability – is Oregon.
“I ask them (why),” Fenton said, “and they don’t have an answer. It’s the secret sauce.”
USC is littered with top-tier local recruits up and down its 2023 roster. But a handful of potential blue-chip 2023 commits – St. John Bosco’s Matayo Uiagalelei, Gardena Serra’s Rodrick Pleasant, Long Beach Poly’s Daylen Austin – opted for the Ducks’ offer over the Trojans. More local rising seniors, including Newport Harbor’s Jordan Anderson and Long Beach Poly’s Dylan Williams, are committed to Oregon in lieu of a USC offer.
If Oregon hadn’t made that move to the Big Ten? It would have had a “distinct impact on their ability to get the L.A. kids,” according to Bosco head coach Jason Negro, whose program is the reigning national champion.
“Now, I kinda see it’s going to be the exact same,” Negro said of Oregon’s Big Ten move. “They’re going to have the same amount of leverage that USC had.”
But the brand and lore Riley has helped restore at USC, Negro said, will ultimately garner more recruiting interest than any – or anyone’s – change of conference.
And when asked Friday if the USC staff had any conversations about keeping their foot on the recruiting gas with Oregon and Washington’s move, Riley pursed his lips and shook his head.
“No, no,” Riley said. “I mean, we’re going to recruit locally and nationally as hard as we can. We came here to win national championships. … I’m very confident in our brand, very confident in our approach.”
“And our goals,” he finished, “are completely unaffected by anything today.”