Luca Evans (OC Register)  —  LOS ANGELES — In front of another podium, in front of another grouping of some of the most important people on and beyond USC’s campus, Lincoln Riley stood for a public address Thursday morning and flashed back to the first footsteps he’d taken here.

After his flight from Norman, Oklahoma, after the monumental presser that introduced Riley as USC’s next football coach, he walked out to USC’s Howard Jones Field that day in November 2021. He’d taken this job, as he expressed then and has expressed since, for the wealth of resources he saw available at USC in a changing era of collegiate athletics. He’d taken this job, in large part, for the commitment promised to him by an entire university.

And in that moment, the seedlings of his vision in Southern California sprouted to life, seeing a practice facility in need of a gleaming renovation to support a program in need of a gleaming renovation.

“OK, where is this right now?” Riley said Thursday, recounting his thought process that day. “Where do we want to take it?”

Three years later, USC has taken another step in translating Riley’s visualizations to reality, breaking ground Thursday on a new $200 million football facility that’s largely been credited as its head coach’s brainchild. As a crowd of athletic-department personnel, donors and coaches looked on, USC President Carol Folt announced the building would be dubbed the Bloom Football Performance Center, in honor of a $50 million donation from longtime supporter Ronald Bloom.

Smiles abounded, on what a beaming Folt called a “day for bedazzling,” from Riley and athletic director Jen Cohen and donors alike. But an implicit understanding undercut Thursday’s proceedings: $157 million has now been poured into USC’s “Athletics West” capital projects (featuring the performance center as its centerpiece) to, in part, support a football coach with a $10 million-plus salary that has delivered a 4-5 record in his third season helming the program.

And in the final moments of his address to the crowd gathered Thursday, standing atop a mock-turf green tarp laid over layers of dirt, a blue-suited Riley offered a direct assurance to his investors.

“Just like you all got this done for us, and for this program and for this university, I promise that you’re going to get the same from us,” Riley told the crowd.

“So, we thank you,” he continued. “We love being in the fight here, and many great days ahead. Thank you so much. Fight On.”

Updated renderings of the facility, expected to be completed in summer 2026, are nothing short of stunning, fully fitting Riley’s previously expressed vision of the “best college football facility in the country.” The Bloom Football Performance Center will span 160,000 square feet, with two full-length practice fields, and include an expanded locker room and designated space for NFL scouts and a USC-described “recruiting terrace.”

Still, amid a refurbishment that’s necessitated a simultaneous teardown and construction of a new baseball stadium at Dedeaux Field, Cohen made clear to a crowd of donors that the department needed to “keep raising money,” as she said. USC is still $40 million away from its expressed target for Athletics West, and that’s without including an ever-present push for funds to support Riley’s program through third-party NIL collective House of Victory.

Under Cohen’s tenure, a once-messy USC NIL landscape has been handily tidied, with over $12 million available in House of Victory’s 2024-25 budget. But as the dawn of revenue-sharing approaches and collectives at fellow Big Ten programs like Ohio State and Oregon continue to outpace USC, Riley took the opportunity Thursday to continue implicitly calling for more support.

“You’re undertaking something that is so rewarding and so incredible on so many levels, but is so difficult on so many levels as well, that it’s gonna take every single person here to do it,” Riley said. “And it doesn’t – whether you’re talking about building a facility, building a team, building a roster, developing a team – like, any part of this that is not completely invested or that doesn’t want this as bad as someone else will cause this to crumble.”

“It won’t work,” he implored. “It won’t work to the level it should.”

Whether donors continue to trust that Riley’s vision is worth the investment, ultimately, remains to be seen. He sits at 23-13 in three years at USC, now, with one bowl-game win and no College Football Playoff appearances under his belt. But Thursday’s groundbreaking, as Riley affirmed, was tangible proof of the unification of the university toward a common goal. A goal supported, especially, by a deep-pocketed Bloom.

“I’ve seen some ups and downs with USC football,” Bloom told the crowd Thursday, a lifelong USC supporter. “I’ve been privileged to be here with the McKay era, the Robinson era, and the Carroll era.”

“I know that Coach Riley’s era will bring us the same, the same great times,” he said.

Last Saturday afternoon, as Bloom told the crowd in the beginning of his address, he’d tugged on a lucky Trojans sweater and sat to watch USC take on Washington. He came away disappointed, as USC lost 26-21 to the Huskies. The sweater, he cracked, didn’t help.

“But the coach is going to help,” Bloom said, as Riley stood and smiled next to him. “I’m going to continue with the sweater, and he’s going to continue.”

“Fair enough,” Riley grinned, nodding his head. “Fair enough.”

ocregister.com

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