Maybe Lincoln Riley Has No Idea How To Run Practice
*Disclaimer*. I am not a football coach. I consider myself more of a talent evaluator. I am not going to pretend that I know more about football from a playcalling standpoint than Lincoln Riley. These thoughts come from the standpoint of being an outside observer while having plenty of experience as being a competitor.
With all of that said, I think USC fans should be disturbed by the comments that Lincoln Riley made following the news of Alex Grinch being fired. I just had the same thought over and over again. Maybe Riley has absolutely no idea how to run practice.
The fact of the matter is, you are what you’re intentional about. USC has the ability to be good on defense. They can recruit any kind of player they want to. It’s hard to ignore one truth of Riley coached teams. They’re always bad on defense. Always.
I thought Geoff Schwartz made some really smart comments the other day. Blame Alex Grinch. Go ahead. At the end of the day, this is on the head coach.
Is Riley practicing competition or is he finding ways to score points? His teams can’t tackle. Did we ever think about the fact that maybe it’s the way his practices are designed? It’s more important to get the offense right than it is to build a true team. That’s what he keeps telling you over and over again.
I’m a big fan of Lincoln Riley but he’s always going to come up short if he doesn’t get his defense fixed. Frankly, I’m starting to be concerned that he has no idea how to do that. It starts in practice. His teams can’t tackle. Does he do anything other than draw up plays? Does he build proper practice habits to ensure his team is taken care of on both sides of the ball?
I think the answer is no and we’re seeing the evidence why each and every week. It’s starting to feel like he wants the defense to let his offense score in practice so that it’s dialed up for the game. I’m not at USC’s practices but someone needs to start monitoring them because it’s hard to explain why his defense stinks this bad. There can only be one reason for it.
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