Central Florida is thinking big with its interest in USC head coach Lincoln Riley. That the middle-tier college football program even believes it has a chance at landing Riley reveals how far the USC coach has fallen.
Riley was arguably the most in-demand coaching candidate in 2022 when both LSU and USC tried to lure him from Oklahoma, where he went 55-10 in five seasons and coached Heisman winners Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.
He rejected LSU’s offer and landed with the Trojans, where he’s underperformed lofty expectations.
After going 11-3 in his first season at USC, Riley is 14-11 since 2023, including 6-6 in 2024, the Trojans’ first season in the Big Ten.
Per The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, Antonio Morales and Ralph Russo, “There has been no indication Riley is interested in making the move” to UCF, although the college football insiders laid out why a step down from USC to UCF could make sense for Riley.
Feldman, Morales and Russo note that former USC athletic director Mike Bohn, who was fired in 2023, and president Carol Folt, who will retire in summer 2025, were instrumental in poaching Riley from Oklahoma.
Current athletic director Jen Cohen, they write, is “in the unenviable position of having an underperforming football program but a coach who is too expensive to move on from.”
UCF just completed its second season in the Big 12. Since the start of 2023, it is 10-15 overall and 5-13 in the Big 12.
Feldman, Morales and Russo report the program will only receive a fraction of Big 12 revenue for the 2024-25 fiscal year before earning a full revenue share beginning in 2025-26.
It would be shocking if Riley leaves USC, a prestigious football program with nine national championships and eight Heisman winners, for one whose biggest claim to fame is an embarrassing “national championship” parade in 2017 despite not winning the national championship.
UCF’s interest could be a wake-up call for Riley. His star has diminished so much since landing in Los Angeles that UCF thinks it’s in his league.
