3 biggest question marks for USC football heading into 2022

Will Los Angeles care about USC Football with Lincoln Riley at the helm?

Los Angeles is a really, really difficult place to stand out in a city known to be the entertainment capital of the world. It makes it hard for the coach to create a brand and identity on the recruiting trail.

The original source escapes me, but someone once explained it really nicely: the USC football coach can go to any high-end restaurant in Southern California and he would be virtually anonymous among the patrons, the paparazzi waiting outside, and probably the staff.

Why?

That high-end restaurant, for example, hosts players for the Los Angeles Lakers, A-list actors and actresses, rappers, rock stars, and internet celebrities.

The local college football coach gets lost in all of that. The publicity and the clamor for college football just hasn’t been able to stand out in a city that has not had college football top-of-mind in years.

The LA Times illustrated this nicely in a piece from 2010 profiling then-coach Lane Kiffin. He couldn’t even go to the grocery store without getting swarmed by fans when he was coaching at Tennessee. But, when he got to USC as their new head coach, he blissfully relished in his newfound anonymity— “you get to be normal,” he said.

So, can new head coach Lincoln Riley make people care about USC football and get people to be enthusiastic about the Trojans?

He’s certainly got a leg up with a ton of transfer talent to help give his team a lot of preseason hype. Will Angelenos care? Will they show up to the LA Memorial Coliseum in droves?

Everyone is watching to see if Lincoln Riley can be charismatic enough to break through in the entertainment capital of the world and be the face of a university that’s ready to take a massive leap forward in athletics.