When Lincoln Riley was named the head coach of USC’s football team in November 2021, he took over a program with a rich history and a long list of successful coaches. Since the Trojans (7-2, 5-1 Pac-12) have won 11 national championships, the bar has been set incredibly high for the football team: Year in and year out, USC fans expect a national title.

Since Riley came in, he has already coached a Heisman winner in junior quarterback Caleb Williams. He has created one of the most prolific scoring offenses in the country. His first recruiting class, including both transfers and high school players, was ranked sixth in the country, according to 24/7 Sports, despite coming to USC mere weeks before the start of the early signing period.

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But Riley has also lost five games in less than two years at the helm to the tune of an 18-5 overall record, albeit all of the losses have been to ranked teams. But before USC’s game this past weekend against UC Berkeley (3-5, 1-4), Riley’s entire tenure came under the spotlight.

Riley’s 17-5 head coaching record at USC prior to the game against the Golden Bears was comparable to the 16-6 record through 22 games for Clay Helton, Riley’s predecessor, after Helton was named full-time head coach on Nov. 30, 2015.

If USC wants to win a national title in the near future, Riley and the Trojans have to amass a much better record than a man who was fired in 2021 after losing to a Stanford team that finished the season 3-9.

But the Trojans have had four different head coaches bring a national title back to Heritage Hall, and the beginning of their coaching tenures at USC have all come differently. So, although Riley’s tenure might have started out rocky, Trojan fans can take solace in that it’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.

Pete Carroll

Carroll, now the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is the last USC head coach to win a national title, winning two back-to-back in 2003 and 2004. The now -72-year-old was hired before the 2001 season to take over a team that went 5-7 in the 2000 season.

In his first year as head coach, Carroll’s team went a measly 6-6 with quarterback Carson Palmer at the helm of the offense. Year two under Carroll went much better for the Trojans, as they finished the season 11-2 with wins over UCLA and Notre Dame, and with Palmer going on to win the Heisman that season.

Carroll and the Trojans finally broke through in year three by taking down Michigan in the Rose Bowl to win USC’s first national titles since 1978.

John Robinson

Similar to Carroll, it was not until Robinson’s third season that the Trojans won a national title. Robinson’s first year as head coach in 1976 was much more successful than Carroll’s, as he led USC to an 11-1 record, including a win over Michigan in the Rose Bowl. In his second year in charge, though, Robinson’s team regressed to an 8-4 record as it lost to Alabama, Notre Dame, Cal and Washington.

He quickly righted the ship, reaching the promised land in 1978 as the Trojans went 12-1, the lone loss coming in October. Similar to Carroll’s first National title, it was a Rose Bowl win over Michigan that clinched it for USC.

While Robinson would not coach a team to another National title, he was head coach the years Charles White (1979) and Marcus Allen (1981) won their Heisman trophies.

John McKay

There seems to be a trend with USC coaches, as McKay was hired in 1960, but did not secure a national title until his third season in 1962. McKay had the worst start to his tenure, going a combined 8-11-1 across his first two seasons, both losing seasons.

But then, McKay and the Trojans had a 7-win turnaround between years two and three as they went 11-0 to clinch the national title. While this championship did end in a Rose Bowl win similar to Carroll and Robinson, the 1962 victory came over Wisconsin.

McKay, tied for the most coaching national titel wins in USC history with four, went on to win again in 1967, 1972 and 1974.

Howard Jones

Of the national title-winning coaches for USC, it took Jones the longest to get there. After coming on as head coach in 1925, it was not until 1928 that Jones won USC’s first national title in program history.

Given the records of McKay and Carroll in their first years as head coach, it is surprising it took Jones the longest to hang a banner, as the Trojans had a 12-1 record in 1925. But USC could not get over the Stanford and Notre Dame humps in 1926 and 1927, going a combined 0-3-1 against the two programs.

Jones and USC were finally able to beat their rivals in 1928, taking down both Stanford and Notre Dame, to lead to a 9-0-1 record and a national title.

Not a single USC football coach has won a national title in year two, and, likely, Riley will not be the one to break the trend. And not a single one of those coaches took over a team as bad as Riley did, as he took over a squad that had just finished the season 4-8.

While Trojan fans can certainly be disappointed that USC is yet again not in contention for a national title despite having a Heisman winner at quarterback, USC’s coaching history shows that it takes time to build up a program.

And, if history repeats itself, Riley is on his way to leading a national title team. All of USC’s seven Heisman winners prior to Williams, including Reggie Bush, were coached by a national championship-winning coach.

Riley already has the Heisman — now he just needs the banner.