The college football coaching carousel is kicking into overdrive with major openings at top tier programs including Florida, Penn State, and LSU. But according to Josh Pate, one more huge school could enter that list soon – USC and Lincoln Riley.
Bill Napier, James Franklin, and Brian Kelly have all fallen by the wayside thanks to varying degrees of underperformance. Napier failed to resurrect the glory days of the Gators and ended with a losing record at the school. Franklin won plenty of games with the Nittany Lions, but none that truly mattered. Another defeat in a Top 10 clash against Oregon seemingly broke the program. And the less said about the mess that Brian Kelly is leaving behind at LSU the better.
In the NIL era, it seems like programs are not willing to accept mediocrity anymore. And if boosters and the money backing football at these schools deem it to be not good enough, change can come sooner than it ever has before.
At USC, Lincoln Riley has been decent, but his resume does not compare to what he put together at Oklahoma. Yes, he continued a string of Heisman winners with Caleb Williams, but his actual win-loss record feels empty. Riley is 32-16 at USC but his win-loss total has gone down each of his first three seasons. And once again the Trojans are on the outside looking in at the College Football Playoff.
And college football podcaster extraordinaire Josh Pate dropped the first hint that Riley could be in trouble in his appearance with Taylor Lewan and Will Compton on Bussin’ with the Boys.
Josh Pate just dropped a BOMB in this week’s episode about a head coaching job
📺 https://t.co/w9501kM5mB pic.twitter.com/V9hh2NjQpl
— Will Compton (@_willcompton) November 6, 2025
“I’m just gonna [pulling the pin on a grenade noise], and can we end on this?” Pate asked the hosts. “Let’s just keep an eye on Lincoln Riley at USC.”
This could be just a vibe check given Riley has fallen below expectations at USC. But it’s probably worth treating with some semblance of seriousness. Pate is not a traditional reporter or newsbreaker, but his fast rise to superstardom has come with plenty of connections throughout the college football universe.
This isn’t quite the same as Zach Gelb unequivocally stating that he had sources that said Urban Meyer was interested in the Penn State job before the university ultimately decided to go in a different direction over NIL concerns. But this sounds like there is more to the story than pure speculation. For whatever reason, Pate decided to play this one close to the vest, but his comments are certainly going to up the pressure on Lincoln Riley to start producing better results at USC.
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