Paul Finebaum's nuclear Lincoln Riley-USC prediction should totally be on the table

A lot can change in a few years. During his five-year run as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, Lincoln Riley regularly had the former Big 12 behemoth in the four-team College Football Playoff. He may have never won a playoff game in his life, but you better believe he got the Sooners there! After leaving Oklahoma for USC, we have seen a great season out of the Trojans followed by a terrible one.

Riley enters the 2024 college football season with a new quarterback and a new defensive coordinator in a new conference. Simply put, either Miller Moss and D'Anton Lynn make it work for the Trojans in the Big Ten, or new USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen will hire a suitable replacement. Riley was Mike Bohn's guy, who left in disgrace. Cohen hired Kalen DeBoer at Washington previously.

While appearing on "McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning," Paul Finebaum thinks 2024 will be it for Riley.

“I always thought he was a really good coach, especially on the offense side, but I don’t think anybody today views him in that same realm. And quite frankly, I think he’ll be out of Southern Cal at the end of the season," said Finebaum, h/t Saturday Down South.

He called Riley's fall from grace "one of the most historic crash and burns in the history of modern college football." Riley went from a top five coach in the country, to maybe top five in the Big Ten.

“It’s a matter of whether it crashes and burns or he decides he needs to seek elsewhere," said Finebaum. "I don’t think there’s any way he is going to be successful out there. I think that train has pulled out of the station, and if indeed that does happen, this is one of the most historic crash and burns in the history of modern college football because five years ago, Lincoln Riley was really considered one of the top five coaches in the country.”

While my FanSided.com colleague Alicia de Artola Castillo defended her coach, I can't say that I will.

Paul Finebaum putting Lincoln Riley on blast at USC is totally justified

To be totally transparent, I firmly believe USC will be a top-25 team this year, probably going something like 9-3 in the new Big Ten. I expect that anything Lynn does on defense will be an improvement over whatever the hell Alex Grinch was employed to do for years. While Caleb Williams is the better quarterback talent, I sense a more relatable guy in Moss lands better with USC players.

While I am skeptical of USC's chances to make the playoff, mostly because I am not goaded into speaking nonsense into existence over on FS1, I am not ruling it out entirely either. What I am saying is that Riley must adapt or he will die a most painful coaching death in major college football. I haven't seen someone harpoon their reputation as a coach this badly since Chip Kelly was over in the NFL...

All Riley has to do to avoid the Finebaum nuclear option of early termination is run the ball with conviction, give a rat's ass about defnese and recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit! Riley already does two of those things well, but he has to prove to us that he is more than a Kliff Kingsbury who interviews better. A rinky-dink, pop-gun is not going to work in the midwest where it often snows.

Overall, the nuclear option should be on the table because the rules of the game have changed. Riley absolutely ducked the SEC by leaving Oklahoma before the Sooners joined their new league. For years, USC has tried to get out of its non-conference game with SEC power LSU. You need to be an adult and play the schedule that is handed to you. Do you see Billy Napier falling apart over Florida's?

Ultimately, this will all come down to how well Cohen gels with Riley. If she thinks USC can return to the promised land with him as the head coach of their Power Two program, he will be given the benefit of the doubt if USC is worse than a respectable 9-3. That should be the goal. Win nine games. If Cohen grows tired of Riley's short-cutting and opportunistic ways, he will be back at Texas Tech...

You are not going to win national championships at a glamor program in the unglamorous Big Ten.