DucksReign wrote:

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32737893/lincoln-riley-leaving-oklahoma-become-usc-head-football-coach-sources-say

Yep. Another article..
https://oklahoma.rivals.com/news/breaking-riley-to-usc

cool. I welcome Mr Riley to the P-12.
this will make everybody raise their games, including Oregon. was about 10 years into the 12-Year Beat Down that UW finally decided to spend $300 mill to renovate the mess that was Husky Stadium and pay Chris Petersen a starting salary close to $4 mill.
some will keep up, and some will fall by the wayside. good day to be a Duck, in more ways than one.

I wonder where Dontae Williams will land?

This is a big hire for USC and the Pac-12. It ups the ante for every other school whether they have an established head coach or are(or will be) hiring one. I think the pressure increases dramatically on who the uw will hire and UCLA as to whether they retain Chip.

But no doubt it brings "national eyeballs" to the Pac-12 from now going forward.

He is going to have instant credibility with recruits(made it to playoffs in 3 of his 4-years); only 38 years old.

In Oregon's case I wonder about current Southern California players on the roster transferring and of even more immediate concern is whether recruiting commits will change to USC.

https://www.oregonlive.com/recruiting/2021/12/will-oregon-ducks-make-a-late-recruiting-splash-the-recruiting-trail-podcast.html

I listened to Andrew's podcast yesterday and he went total rant about Ducks fans downplaying the hit they'll take on recruiting. 

He thinks if LC would've been at USC the last several years we wouldn't have KT, Flowe, and number of other recruits. 

Andrew's probably right. On a bright note he thinks the Ducks can still get the best O-line recruits with Mario and maybe make a case for defensive players.

I didn't think USC was going to land an A list type head coach. 

Been thinking about this one for a while before commenting.  For USC, it's a home run hire -- a big name who will be able to recruit, knows how to scheme an offense, and will win a lot of games.

For Riley, it's a home run, too.  In the B12, he was able to out-recruit everyone because Texas was a dumpster fire and so everyone knew OU was likely to win the conference most years.  And, because he could coach offense which is exciting for QBs and skill players.  

And then, he'd go into the playoffs almost every year -- and lose.  Because SEC teams and Clemson would dominate the line of scrimmage on his teams, usually.  

And now, Oklahoma is going to the SEC.  And Riley teams would lose several games a year, because flash offense may win a lot of games but it won't win week in and week out in the SEC.  So he bailed to a job where he could have huge recruiting advantages and be in a conference where flash offense will win at least 10 games a year, and probably more.  

And if he recruits successfully and installs his offense, and is given time to rebuild the dumpster fire down there, which he probably will have, he'll beat us sometimes, too.  But I'm going to guess if Mario sticks around that more often than not, when we play them, we'll control the LOS enough to win the game.  

So, in my view, this is good for USC, good for Lincoln Riley (perhaps he's the biggest winner of this, he gets to bail out of a situation that wasn't looking great for him while positioning it as a promotion), and probably good for us.  It probably means that when we get to the P12 championship game, we won't be playing a 3 loss Utah team.  We'll either be playing a USC with two or fewer losses, or an unbeaten or one-loss team that beat them out for the P12 South.  It may take him 2-3 years to get them to that level, but it will happen.  The transfer portal may help him get there faster.

And it certainly increases the chance that Notre Dame takes a loss to USC half the time or more, which will bolster the P12's credibility with the playoff committee and very possibly remove ND from consideration.  

So, in my view, bring it on.