Lincoln Riley has yet to deliver the level of success Southern California fans hoped for when he made a shocking move west from Oklahoma after the 2021 regular season.
USC is better than it was when Riley arrived but as the No. 11 Trojans’ loss at No. 18 Michigan suggests, they are not entering the Big Ten as serious contenders to win their new conference. It’s fair to say, more was expected of Riley than 21-9 after 30 games.
The school Riley left behind also played its first game in a new league Saturday night, and No. 15 Oklahoma made it clear it will not be challenging for the Southeastern Conference championship. The Sooners were smothered by No. 6 Tennessee in Volunteers coach Josh Huepel’s return to Norman.
Riley has become a pariah in Oklahoma. Sooners fans have reveled in his struggles at USC and are convinced OU is better off without him. But Brent Venables, Riley’s replacement, is 19-11 at Oklahoma.
Venables’ Oklahoma is most definitely different from Riley’s.
Even while Riley was going 55-10 with two Heisman Trophy winners in five years at OU, his teams played little defense and never felt like a threat to win a national title as they stacked up Big 12 titles.
Riley’s Oklahoma program appeared to be slipping and the way he constructed a roster certainly didn’t seem like a recipe for success in the SEC. In fact, some of his detractors suggested Riley fled OU because he feared leading the transition into the toughest conference in the country.
Venables, the former defensive coordinator at Clemson, has taken a different approach. He has stressed building up the lines and playing salty defense. The problem is that now the offense is a mess.
Oklahoma came into the Tennessee game averaging less than 5.0 yards per play under new coordinator Seth Littrell and then was held to 3.3 by Heupel’s Volunteers, who — to be fair — are nasty up front.
So who is better off, USC or Oklahoma?
Riley tried to address the defensive issues in the offseason with a staff overhaul, starting with luring D’Anton Lynn from UCLA to be defensive coordinator.
The Trojans have been better defensively. Of course, the bar set by former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch was really low. Still, there is work to be done after allowing 290 yards rushing to a Michigan team without a functional passing game.
“It’d be interesting to go back and look at it, but I mean we probably played – probably won – 80-85% of the defensive snaps,” Riley said. “But we lost some of them big.”
Three long runs accounted for 154 yards for Michigan.
USC is also not where it needs to be on the offensive line, which is going to hold back the side of the ball where Riley thrives, especially in the Big Ten.
Meanwhile, at Oklahoma, Venables benched highly touted second-year quarterback Jackson Arnold during the Tennessee game for freshman Michael Hawkins Jr.
“He’s a tough young man and he knows he has to be better,” Venables said of Arnold.
Not including sacks, Oklahoma averaged 2.0 yards per carry.
Oklahoma fans have swapped lamenting what their team could be with a competent defense to longing for a solid offense to support an ascending defense.
After more than a decade of dysfunction at USC following the Pete Carroll era, there are more positive signs now under Riley than with any of his predecessors. But, again, that’s not saying much.
For now, both sides of Riley’s move are still hoping for more.
Ratings gold
Games like USC-Michigan will help college football fans adapt to the demise of the Pac-12.
The 11th-ranked Trojans and 18th-ranked Wolverines played a regular-season game for the first time in 66 years and it was an instant Big Ten classic.
When conference officials and television executives came up with the idea of a Big Ten West Wing, this is exactly what they had in mind.
“Can’t believe we’re stuck with this game when we could be watching SC play Cal in front of 40,000 empty seats,” Fox Sports executive Michael Mulvihill posted on X.
Fox shares the Big Ten’s rights with CBS and NBC.
USC-Michigan was on CBS and no doubt drew a monster audience that will make the network’s suits thrilled with their $350-million-a-year investment.
But that’s how they get you: with USC at Michigan going down to the wire on a sunny Saturday in front of 110,000 fans; with No. 6 Tennessee at No. 15 Oklahoma in the Sooners’ first SEC game, played later Saturday.
It’s cold but true. The games always seem to deliver.
More than a year after the Pac-12 fell apart, with its traditional members scattered to other power conferences, all this realignment is producing some weird stuff.
On Friday night, Stanford made a cross-country trip to Syracuse to play its first game as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
It is fair to ask: What is the point of all this?
Then the Cardinal and Orange played a thriller, won by Stanford with a walk-off field goal, and the absurdity of it all fades and fans forget the greedy and destructive off-field decisions the people who run college football so often make.
Around the country
Shedeur Sanders conjured up memories of Kordell Stewart with a game-tying touchdown pass on the final play of regulation against Baylor in Colorado’s first Big 12 game since 2010. Then Travis Hunter sealed the field-storming victory in overtime by forcing a fumble inches from the goal line. He also had seven catches for 130 yards. … Best team in the Big 12? No. 12 Utah is the obvious choice after the Utes won at No. 14 Oklahoma State without injured QB Cam Rising (hand) and No. 13 Kansas State had an epic meltdown at BYU…. No. 7 Missouri was taken to the brink by Vanderbilt, and escaped with a double-overtime victory that ended with the Commodores missing a short field goal that would have tied it and kept the game going. … Florida got a win at Mississippi State that might buy coach Billy Napier at least a few more weeks. The school is without a president and there isn’t a lot of upside in firing a coach in September and opening up a transfer portal window for the players. The Gators do have an open week before their next game against UCF in the Swamp on Oct. 5. As for the Bulldogs (1-3), they look as if they are starting from scratch in Year 1 under coach Jeff Lebby. … Since leaving Georgia behind in Week 1, No. 21 Clemson has been unstoppable. The Tigers have bounced back from that humbling loss by outscoring Appalachian State and N.C. State by a combined 101-20 — in the first half. Even taking degree of difficulty into account, Clemson’s offense and QB Cade Klubnik have been unrecognizable from last season. Before kicking a field goal on the last play of the first half against N.C. State, the Tigers scored touchdowns on 14 of 15 first-half possessions over the last two games. … No. 23 Northern Illinois followed up beating Notre Dame by losing at home in overtime to Buffalo. MACtion! … Both James Madison’s old coach and JMU with a new coach remain unbeaten. Former Dukes coach Curt Cignetti has Indiana at 4-0 for the first time since 2020 after another blowout, this time against Charlotte. The Hoosiers have outscored their opposition 150-23 so far. Meanwhile, JMU under former Holy Cross coach Bob Chesney moved to 3-0 by dropping 53 points on North Carolina in the first half, the most ever allowed by the Tar Heels in a half. “Embarrassing day, shocking day,” UNC coach Mack Brown said.
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Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP
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