USC lost to Oregon, 41-27, on Saturday. It dropped the Trojans to 4-1 on the season and sent Lincoln Riley to 5-15 against ranked opponents as the head coach of USC. Another loss to a ranked opponent has put USC head coach Riley squarely on the hot seat.
Now, Paul Finebaum of ESPN is calling for USC to fire their coach, per Awful Announcing.
“Everybody knows who the fraud is. It's Lincoln Riley… it will cost about $70 million to get rid of Lincoln Riley. But I promise you, USC people, it will be worth it because this guy is bringing your program down to the gutter,” Finebaum said.
The comments from Finebaum ratchet up what he said the day before, when the analyst was speaking on The Matt Barrie Show.
Article Continues Below“But let's talk about Lincoln Riley for a second, and this is not going to be one of these, ‘Lincoln Riley is a fraud. He should be fired,'” Finebaum said. “I think it's up to USC to decide what they what kind of program they want. If they want a nice program, you know they had a couple of good years under (Clay) Helton, they've had one good year under Lincoln Riley. Then they can figure out a way to, you know, keep enabling Lincoln Riley. But I'll tell you right now, Lincoln Riley is not an elite coach. He is not a coach capable of turning a program like Southern Cal around.”
Since Pete Carroll left the program following the 2009 season, USC has had just five ten-win seasons. The first came in the second season of Lane Kiffin in 2011, while the second came under the combination of Kiffin and Ed Orgeron in 2013. Clay Helton got them to back-to-back ten-win years in 2016 and 2017, before struggling in his last four seasons. Riley coached USC to an 11-3 record in 2022, still in the Pac-12.
Riley is now 39-19 in his time at USC, playing for just one conference title. That was a Pac-12 title game appearance in 2022.
Riley is also getting blamed for the poor culture at USC. The Trojans return to the field on Saturday, hosting Washington at 7:30 pm ET.