It’s amazing a loss suddenly opens the floodgates about what gets reported.
USA Today reports Lincoln Riley and USC are an “unhappy marriage.”
Oh really?
Loyal blog readers already knew that. Way back on Feb. 5, 2025, I wrote Jen Cohen was “privately frustrated with Riley.” In the same article, I said she installed Chad Bowden as the GM with a mandate to run the program. That’s how strained things were back then.
The mainstream media wasn’t interested in this angle. But now that USC’s lost a couple games, well . . .
P.S. — One side note to keep in mind. The USA Today reporter has a close relationship with USC general manager Chad Bowden.

DON: All that matters is how the SC players feel about themselves and Wiley
KAM: And that we will never know for sure
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KAM: Translation: Will the team quit on Riley Coyote?
DON: Time to try out for other teams.
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FOR LINCOLN RILEY
GOT ALONG WITHOUT YA BEFORE I MET YA GONNA GET WITHOUT YA NOW DIDNT NEED YA ANYHOW !!
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Exactly.
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The AD and the GM have to be on the same page about what USC football should look like and be played like, the culture, the expectations and goals. SC has everything in place. The coaches should just be the people who are competently fulfill the job description.
We play ND. We need to get Cal and Stanford back on the schedule and our “Weekenders”– and for that matter OSU, WSU, ASU and UA when we can.
We have strong, open and genuine alum / student / community relations and PR and media relations. USC and LA is a vibrant place with a lot of energy and potential support, an asset, not something to be shied away from.
We want a great and respectful experience and connection with the fans and we welcome the support and hear their sentiments (good and bad but hopefully never indifferent).
We cherish and hold high USC and its traditions and legends and history; and we lean into being old ‘SC. We believe ‘SC is a special place and SC athletics is a community within a community, led by our football Trojans program.
Our program is about excellence, competition, comradery, loyalty, persistence, effort, discipline– building men, not seeming like punks nor being shallow, transactional, ahistorical, disconnected. We have student-athletes that prize USC, we produce winners in life, a community that our sports program draws together. The best combo of academics, athletics and community, plus location.
Those are the requirements, we need a competent manager to keep a proper staff in place to execute. We don’t have room for reinvention.
#TrojanClubs #Weekenders #TheSouthland #California #WestCoast The REAL #ChampionsOfTheWest #TheGrandOldLady #RoseBowl #Homecoming #TheRow #TheTrojanFamily
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oh, wolfman, you’ve done it again! your stellar (and prescient) reportage concerning this internal Admin strife is now confirmed! but YOUR readers got the sweeet scooop back in Feb ’25!! as i’ve always said: water covers 2/3 of the Earth, and the wolfman covers the rest!!
#PulitzerWronglyDelayed
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Tell me when ucla has more than 40000 PAYING customers
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We’ve got a far better team than you, a fact will be undeniable in a very personal way in a few weeks.
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*which
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The ‘USCLAFB’ podcaster ‘News report provides clarity andcrelationship between USC Trojans and Lincoln Riley’ quoted the USAToday article Scott referenced. The podcaster stated (10 minute mark) an ‘individual familiar with the contract stated after Bohn was released as AD and Cohen was hired that Riley ‘….waived.. ‘ the buyout i.e. allowing him to leave smoothly and buyout is not $72 but $57.
I’m dissapointed by the results but I think the USAToday writer has it right…this is over and both Riley and USC know it.
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Hi John, If Link iz in n unhappee marryage, he jist neads to vizit missus ed. for a cuppl uv seshions to undurstand wut a wooman neads to doo to keap hur man.
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