FOOTBALL

Lincoln Riley Purging USC Roster

Five USC players entered the transfer portal this week, so I asked a player what was behind the flurry of roster moves?

“Some of the players are being told it is in their best interest to find another school to play at,” the player said. “They don’t have a future at USC.”

This will also free up scholarships for Lincoln Riley to get other players via the transfer portal. And USC is hosting 26 recruits this weekend, so scholarships are valuable.

It also shows the new coaching staff has already watched film and decided who can help them.

I wonder what Riley has told Kedon Slovis? Even if he doesn’t think Slovis will start, he probably wouldn’t mind keeping him around as a backup.

35 thoughts on “Lincoln Riley Purging USC Roster”

    1. Trojan fans should not turn on Donte. He was given an impossible task. It simply was not fair to him to be asked to turn around the program with TO and GH still in charge of their respective sides of the ball.

      Dont forget, Donte was a tireless recruiter for USC and would have been incredibly successful at it if the head coach was not named Clay Helton.

      Blame Helton for everything. He is the scum of the earth that does everything for his own interests and lies with every breath he takes.

      And we should wish those Trojans that leave the program good luck. It was not the players fault that they were in a program that taught them unhealthy attitudes or recruited players that simply did not have the physical attributes to perform at a championship level.

      Enough with the player bashing and ex-coach bashing (except for Helton, Harrell and TO, they are the guys who were responsible for this carnage).

      We have a bright future – focus on that.

      Liked by 8 people

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      1. Let’s definitely focus on the future –but let’s not let Donte off the hook too easily either. On the plus side, Donte emphasized the run way more than it was being emphasized before he took over. He also got some underused receivers on the field…and they proved up to the task. On the other hand, Donte didn’t manage disgruntled players much better than Helton did —and dumb penalties and bad attitude reach all time highs in the UCLA, BYU and Cal games. A portion of this was beyond Donte’s control. But not all of it. Life is not fair — Donte represents a very sorry time in USC football –possibly the worst time ever. In order to REALLY move on he needs to go.

        Liked by 3 people

      3. The defensive backs were the worst performing position group. When Donte Williams was named interim coach I knew things would go downhill. They did. As far as his recruiting, I didn’t see anyone who can play on Sundays in the defensive backfield. They were burned again and again. They were lousy tacklers. There are 3 main rules for DBacks: 1) Don’t let anyone behind you; 2) When the receiver looks, you know the ball is coming so look too; and 3) If you have to come up and make the tackle, COME UP AND MAKE THE TACKLE!

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      4. Admittedly our d-backs weren’t hitting on all cylinders in those 3 specific areas …but they killed it when it came to celebrating overthrown passes and dropped passes.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. In 2020, I thought that the CB play was “improved” under First year coach Donte, though the Covid phenomenon makes analysis difficult.
      CB play worsened for sure–esp ITS’ play–after Donte took over as HC.
      I think Donte is a fine local talent, and I’d like to see him find a place at USC.

      In all honesty, the safeties not named IPM actually played pretty well most of the time.

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      1. If Helton was a fish out of water, as far as a head coach was concerned, Donte, was a minnow. Who on that coaching staff would you recommend fill in for Helton? Donte is a great recruiter, keep him.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. Donte is a shit position coach. Recruiting is not going to be an issue at USC. Now it’s about player development.
      Trust me, you don’t want any holdovers from the previous regime. Read up on Jimmy Johnson’s first year at The U. It was a disaster because he had to keep three assistants from Schnellenberger’s staff. The next season he cleaned house and the rest is history.

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      1. I appreciate kenwible’s take on Donte —but I identify with yours way more, trojn4.
        #IfEVERThereWereATimeToStartFromScratch,ThisIsIt

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I agree. SC recruits itself. Get assistants who can coach and develope players and start winning and you will not need great salesmen to recruit. Nick Saban doesn’t seem to me like the most charismatic personality, in fact, he’s seems like a hard guy to get along with. Yet the great players flock to Alabama. Johnny Wooden wasn’t exactly trying to be each players best buddy. Neither was Bobby Knight

        Liked by 3 people

      3. I agree. USC football will recruit itself when they are winning. Get assistants that can develope players. Win and the players will come. If this was Weber State, then I would say that you need really great recruiters. But not at SC. We need to concentrate on getting top notch people who can coach and develope players. Donte was the secondary coach at San Jose State in 2014 and 2015 and those two teams were 2 of the best teams in the nation in pass defense. If you look at his record since then, he hasn’t done that well. Get coaches who can coach. Don’t worry about recruiting. SC will recruit itself.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Walter,

        I respectfully disagree. Who did he recruit for SC? he got a few dbs. However, if Riley and his staff were able to pull kids to go to okie, thn he can keep the kids here. The only thing I think that would be good for him is being in charge of recruiting.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. I hope Lincoln Riley was referring to the players in the trenches, because they’re not the type who can compete against SEC teams if they go to the playoffs.

    Liked by 4 people

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    2. It starts with the trenches. The foundation of this program. Riley and company should be selling this to the recruits they are targeting. That they can come in and compete for a starting job right away. Or go sit for some other program and wait their turn. The choice is yours but there is no better place to be right now then on the West Coast and SC. The academics, exposure, and opportunities in the entertainment capital of the world are too tremendous to pass up and no other University is going to get you all of that in one!

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. Get rid of all them … players and coaches ! They have loitered around SC long enough. Including that career vagabond Donte.

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  6. Scooter,

    It is better to get rid of all the old coaches. People want to keep Williams because of recruiting. However, he is missing the point. it is better if he becomes better by becoming the best coach he can be. He needs to learn how to be a discplinarian, to be a better coach, move up to being a dcordinator, study film, study tendencies, learn about SC and what make it ticks. he needs more experience. Let hm get it. Hopefully next time SC hires a coach, he will be more than prepared and have the fans wanting him. He did a great job for the circumstances and SC owes him an interview next time. but now is not the time to have a coach in training. That has happened the last 10 years. SC needs experience coaches. I only wish Coach Williams the best and hopefully he will become a great head coach candidate, in the future.

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. I would rather have Tee Martin back then keeping Donte Williams I know he’s guaranteed to bring in some top recruits. The recruiting fell off big time after he left. We we’re all deceived thinking Helton was the one bringing in the top recruits to SC at the time. It was Tee Martin who won the same award as Donte for recruiter of the year. Addition by subtraction.

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  7. When you look at the USC roster there are so many names of players I have never heard of. This roster is filled up with guys who will never play a day on the field, but are getting their USC degree for free. Helton was such a horrible coach.

    My bet is that 50% of the rest of the staff also needs to be purged and replaced. Anyone that contributed to the mess really cant stick around.

    I disagree that Donte can be blamed for any of this. He is a great guy, but just not ready to be a head coach. It was unfair to him to put him in that position.

    Liked by 2 people

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  8. Note, Lincoln Riley was not noted for line play– along with turning toward the passing game when playing big boys or struggling (and getting whipped for it), and a lack of discipline (one of the most penalized teams in the country), so some of the house-cleaning better start with self reflection. No one should throw away the talent in the trenches yet– a 3 star guy that’s two years more physically mature and in good health is as good as 4 star lineman or TE, and as rare, with the right coaching, scheme and training. I find it incredible that people are still hanging onto the idea that the issue was mainly talent rather than a bad scheme and poor development and poor discipline.

    As for Donte, he has strong ties to the area and strong ties to USC– multiple family members played. If not Donte, someone like Donte. We don’t want a rerun of Harrell and Orlando and Hugs with their insularity, friend-hiring, “empire building” bullsht. It’s bad for recruiting, it’s bad for the culture and competence, and when Lincoln Riley leaves (and he will, either through failure or success) we need continuity of SC as SC, not Riley’s show. Please get that out of your head if it is there. We’re a program, not each passing coach’s one-man show.

    I was hoping that instead of bringing in Grinch, who has been pretty crap, that maybe he’s make a run at someone like Ryan Nielsen, the DL coach with the Saints, as a DC/AHC. What we don’t need is to “ice out” USC connections– those that do are unbelievably ignorant, short sighted, forgetful and emotional. That’s how we get that extra few high 4* and 5* players and bring back SC’s winning tradition and ensure future continuity. The same holds true for bring at least one Polynesian ‘SC great back on staff for culture and recruiting purpose. ‘SC wouldn’t be ‘SC without a pipeline to those Poly and LDS players, the same ones that the punks that we’re getting among our students these days are saying “f*** you” to.

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  9. This guy has truly hit the road running. He’s looking at film and deciding who will fit into his program and who won’t and, at the same time, recruiting and hiring coaches. You can’t accuse him of not being thorough. This guy personally recruits and gets all of his staff to recruit. You don’t have any assistants on his staff like Clancy who didn’t think that recruiting was part of his job. You go over to UCLA and you have Chip Kelly who never wanted any part of recruiting. He hated it. That’s probably why he left Oregon the first time.

    Liked by 3 people

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  11. Every “player” who stayed home from the Cal game for any reason other than injury or illness, should be dismissed from the team and stripped of their scholarship. First they betrayed their teammates for selfish reasons. Second they failed to live up to the terms of their scholarship.
    Riley will hopefully bring some maturity and strength to the team. There are very few players who have transferred out and contributed to their new team. And when they do, Scott will make sure we know all about it.

    Liked by 3 people

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  13. Behind Riley is a shot of an impressive downtown LA skyline–
    Kind of like saying, “Hey Norman, Oklahoma– match this!”

    Downtown’s lightings at night from afar are magnificent. We are no
    New York or Hong Kong skylines, but LA is Top-5 in the world.

    My world, but you should check out once in a while (Residents of
    Maui are excluded)

    Liked by 1 person

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    2. as long as you don’t actually look at what goes on at street level,like San Fran, and after dark, LA can fool some of the people all the time ,even all the people some of the time,at this point with dems running everything incl schools, all the people all the time…time to chk out, permanently unless your woke, a commie wannabe,or any combination thereof…is that worth 2 cents???

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