Lincoln Riley wants recruits ‘willing to hang in there’ in transfer portal era

USC head coach Lincoln Riley was blunt in his assessment of his team — and those leaving via the transfer portal — when speaking to reporters Monday ahead of the Trojans’ Holiday Bowl matchup against Louisville (Dec. 27, 8 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app).

Riley was specifically asked about Malachi Nelson, the five-star quarterback out of nearby Los Alamitos (Calif.) High School, who was the jewel of USC’s 2023 recruiting class but entered the transfer portal over the weekend after appearing in just one game behind starting quarterback Caleb Williams last season. Nelson was seen as the heir apparent to Williams, the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner and projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

“That part’s difficult, because the old school in all of us has all the great memories of guys that we coached that maybe weren’t ready in the beginning, and they progressed and got better,” Riley said, via Rivals. “[But] it’s just part of the world of college football at this current time.”

“For me and our coaches, the one thing we’ve talked about with our players is putting our energy into the people that are here. It’s easy to get wrapped up who’s entering the portal, who’s doing this, who’s doing that. The reality is, every college football program in the country is dealing with it, and we can either put all our attention into that or we can put our energy into the guys that are out here working and competing and getting ready to go play in this [bowl] game.”

Riley said his message to both his current team and the recruits he anticipates signing with USC on Wednesday’s National Signing Day, is that they want to build the team first and foremost around people who want to be in his program and see through its rise back to college football’s elite tier.

The Trojans have lost several other former highly-rated recruits to the transfer portal in recent days. Those include former five-star wide receiver Mario Williams, who followed Riley from Oklahoma to USC after his freshman season, as well as former four-star running back/wide receiver Raleek Brown, former five-star cornerback Domani Jackson, and former four-star linebacker Tackett Curtis.

Korey Foreman, a defensive end who was a consensus five-star and a 2021 USC signee under previous head coach Clay Helton, is also reportedly bound for the portal.

[2023-24 college football transfer portal tracker: Three former five-stars leaving USC]

Both Jackson and Curtis were starters on the 2023 USC defense that infamously struggled during the second half of the season, and have since seen their position coaches replaced by new hires under new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn.

“The recruiting approach for us is going to be centered on people that we feel like have a passion to really be here,” Riley said. “You want to have guys that are hungry to get on the field right away, but also guys that have a mind to be developed and have a sense of good sense of reality.

“Development is one of the hallmarks of our program, one of the strengths that we have, but the other half of it is you have to have people that are willing to hang in there and go through what it really takes to develop and become a really good player at this level. I would say that’s even become a bigger part of our evaluation process in terms of kind of what we’re targeting.”

Case in point — USC had no five-star recruits in 247Sports’ rankings committed in its 2024 class two days before early signing day. Additionally, none of the Trojans’ current top three recruits in the class are offensive skill position players, which Riley has historically specialized in.

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