The NCAA sheriff handed down some law at Southern California on Wednesday, and the next three weeks just got vitally important for coach Lincoln Riley.
In the simplest terms, the NCAA gave USC a get out of jail free card to fire Riley and escape his mega contract .
The NCAA placed the school on probation for one year, and fined it $50,000 for on- and off-field coaching by non-coaching analysts on staff.
More potentially damning to Riley, whose teams have lost nine of their last 12 games: Southern California agreed with the NCAA that Riley violated “head coach responsibility” rules. This means the school could fire Riley with cause and not have to pay off tens of millions in contract commitments.
That’s right, fire Riley and not owe him a penny.
I don’t want to get into the semantics of why the “head coach responsibility” charge isn’t as damaging because the rule was given more teeth in 2023 (two years after the Trojans hired Riley). All you need to know is there’s now a off ramp for USC in this growing mess.