When Lincoln Riley took the reins of a USC program in desperate need of a rebuild, no one expected a new foundation to be laid overnight. Still, when Riley was asked in November how quickly he could turn around the Trojans, he didn’t try to limit expectations.
“In this day and age, I think it can happen quickly, I do,” Riley said.
Fast forward nine months — and 20 transfers — later, and USC enters camp as one of the most intriguing roster experiments in college football, a team rebuilt almost entirely through the transfer portal. Torn down essentially to the studs, the Trojans return this season with a new coaching staff, a new quarterback, a new backfield, two new potential All-American receivers, a new left tackle, a new corps of linebackers and a handful of new faces in the secondary.
What Riley has already built over the course of a single offseason will stand as an early case study for program building in the age of the transfer portal. Can a team that completely unraveled be completely transformed overnight? We’ll know soon enough.
As USC opens its first training camp of the Riley era on Friday, plenty of other pressing questions need to be answered first:
What should we expect from quarterback Caleb Williams and new top receiver Jordan Addison?
They grew up just an hour apart in the Washington, D.C., area, but Caleb Williams and Jordan Addison didn’t know each other well until this past spring, when Addison, the 2021 Biletnikoff Award winner, suddenly became available in the transfer portal, and Williams, USC’s new quarterback, turned his attention to recruiting the reigning top receiver in college football.
“I was in his ear,” Williams said last week. “I think I texted [linebacker] Shane [Lee]. I was like, ‘Text this kid.’ I think it was 15 of my teammates I had text Jordan. Like, guys, ‘We’re going to need him to go win some big games.’ That’s how important Jordan was. That’s how important all these guys I tried to help support and get here to come play with me.”
None may be more crucial…