INDIANAPOLIS — 

Ryan Kartje (LA Times)  —  Lincoln Riley strode confidently into the cavernous confines of a new, unfamiliar stadium, one of the new coaches on the block in the Big Ten, surrounded on all sides by both the novel and the unfamiliar.

Everywhere inside Lucas Oil Stadium were reminders of how much Riley’s circumstances had changed since last season. New coaches, new players, new logos, new everything.

It wasn’t just the new conference and all its new trappings, though. The landscape of college athletics has been upended since USC beat Louisville in the Holiday Bowl in December.

Within the Trojans’ own building, so much had turned over, too. A new quarterback, a new defensive coordinator, a new defensive scheme and a new, stiffer schedule to handle, all with revenue sharing also on the horizon.

But amid all the new and unfamiliar at Big Ten media days, the message from Riley, at the start of his third season at USC, was, by now, a well-worn one. In fact, he offered an almost identical sentiment at this time last year, at Pac-12 media day … before USC imploded, and finished a frustrating 8-5.

In discussing the state of his program Wednesday at Big Ten media days, Riley declared that USC had made “progress in every way you can possibly measure” since he took over, but was still well in the midst of a “rebuild” nearly three years in, one he suggested was far more substantial than those his Big Ten counterparts took on.

In the same breath, Riley was also defiant that USC enters its new conference this year already among its upper tier, with its sights set on stacking national titles.

How long he can successfully straddle both of those notions as USC’s coach remains to be seen.

“We are at the top of the Big Ten,” Riley said. “We’re at the top of any conference. I don’t ever look at ourselves as below anybody. And never will. Listen, two years ago, look where Ohio State and Oregon were. Look what they took over. Look what we took over. It takes time. I’m not a magician. I can’t wave a magic wand and everything be perfect right away. But find one area where we haven’t made progress. It’s coming. Nothing is going to stop it.”

Will that confidence be enough to quell concerns, fair or not, coming into Year 3? It’s unclear. Already, talking heads across the sport have taken to lobbing narrative grenades toward Riley and the Trojans over the past month, with ESPN’s Paul Finebaum most recently declaring his tenure at USC to be “a disaster.”

Those potshots elicited a heavy eye roll from Riley’s new quarterback, Miller Moss.

“We’re not going to pay any mind to people who have no idea what’s going on within our program and our building,” Moss said.

And indeed, no matter the blathering on ESPN, no one within USC is under the impression Riley enters USC’s first year in the Big Ten in danger or under pressure from within.

But this season looms as the most critical yet for Riley, not only to make a first impression in a new conference, but also to reignite belief he’s the same coach USC backed up the Brinks truck to hire back in 2021 for nearly $20 million.

Patience, in that regard, is beginning to wear thin around USC, as whispers of discontent among fans and donors — with NIL, with recruiting, with on-field results — grew louder and louder through the offseason. Recruiting missteps in the summer, which saw two five-star prospects de-commit, did nothing to help the perception USC is still lagging on that front.

Riley was well aware of that perception Wednesday.

In defending its progress, he went so far as to declare House of Victory, USC’s donor-led collective, as “the most improved collective in the country.”

“From where [NIL at USC] was to where it is now is incredible,” Riley said. “It’s just what lens do you look at it from. Is it at the top of the top? No, but we’re not far off.”

At a foundational level, however, USC has been slow to gain traction in recruiting over the summer, hamstrung by those extremely high-profile decommitments after some early momentum.

At the moment, USC has the 24th-ranked recruiting class in the nation in the class of 2025, as pinned by 247Sports; Ohio State and Oregon, by comparison, rank first and fifth.

Where things stand on the field is just as uncertain, especially as the competition ratchets up in a new conference. Through 27 games, Riley is 19-8, the same win-loss total as his predecessor, the much-maligned Clay Helton, whose tenure ended in complete collapse. Yet at this point in his tenure, Helton had far more tangible momentum.

Despite all the bravado, Riley still has more question marks both throughout his program and in what the 2024 Trojans now face than anything.

The schedule — with first-month road matchups against LSU and Michigan — is a murderer’s row compared with its recent slates under Riley.

Caleb Williams is off to the NFL, while Moss is still mostly untested at quarterback, aside from his six-touchdown explosion in the Holiday Bowl. And the defense, led by new coordinator D’Anton Lynn, is still a complete unknown, even if Riley noted the front seven was “quite a bit bigger, quite a bit stronger” than past years.

Only time will tell how that “progress” plays out in a brand-new conference, against new teams with new styles and new coaches.

All told, Riley repeated the word “progress” – from a program-wide standpoint – nine times, by the Southern California News Group’s unofficial count, at various points through three separate media sessions during USC’s showing at Big Ten Media Day. He uttered the word “rebuild” three times.

But Riley made clear Wednesday that he has every intention of sticking around for the foreseeable future to see it through.

“I was very much a believer and even more so now that the firepower in this program has not gone anywhere,” Riley said. “It’s a process to get [back] there. We’ve been playing catch-up in damn near every way that you can think of.

“Has my patience been tested by it? Hell yeah. No doubt. Like, every day. But my resolve hasn’t been tested, my commitment to being here hasn’t been tested. I know this is the right place. I know what this is going to be.”

latimes.com

___________