Mike Leach’s coaching tree is pretty impressive. The man’s legacy is all over the place in college football. Aspects of his offense can be seen at just about every level and he’s seen numerous former players and assistants go on to become coaches and thrive.
Unfortunately for one former Leach assistant at Texas Tech, the expectation to win at a high level is present with his current job.
We’ve already talked a bit about how Sonny Cumbie is likely facing the hot seat with the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs. Now we’re going to discuss the pickle that Lincoln Riley and the USC Trojans are in right now heading into 2025.
Ahead of this season, Riley is facing a bit of pressure. The Trojans, understandably, want to win. And the past couple of seasons haven’t been great for the USC football team. However, it appears that they’re also facing an enormously large buyout.
So there’s a bit of an odd situation between the USC Trojans and the former Texas Tech quarterback and assistant coach.
Lincoln Riley, a former Texas Tech assistant coach under Mike Leach is facing the hot seat at his current gig with the USC Trojans
When Riley left a pretty good situation with the Oklahoma Sooners and went out west, he likely didn’t anticipate landing on the hot seat a couple years later. However, the Trojans are expecting to compete for national titles.
And Riley isn’t delivering on that so far.
So even though there’s an enormous buyout that is reportedly in play here, it also still looks like Riley is going to be under a sizable amount of pressure to win this season.
It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. It’s also interesting that while Riley is on the hot seat, the Trojans are thriving on the recruiting trail right now with their 2026 recruiting class. So maybe there’s a bit of security there with the assumption that Riley improves things? I don’t know. We’ll see.