Over the past year, the USC Trojans and Lincoln Riley have clearly moved toward emphasizing recruiting Southern California.
During his first three years at SC, it wasn’t that Riley and his staff didn’t recruit California, but it always felt that it wasn’t the priority.
His first class in 2022, which he had to scramble to put together after getting hired after the season ended, was 40% California kids.
In 2023, the number of Cali recruits rose a bit to 45% of the class. But in 2024, it dropped even further to only 32% of the class being from the State of California. And the 2025 class was even lower at 21%.
There is certainly a balance, and you have to recruit out-of-state kids, especially at certain positions, but when you are the flagship school of one of the most talented states in the Country, you have to own that state.
Well, it certainly seems that Lincoln Riley is thinking more this way. It is still early, but of the 11 recruits in the 2026 class, 7 of them, or 64%, are from California. And there are plenty of more from the state trending in the Trojans’ favor.
Riley was recently on an episode of The Hard Count by J.D. Pickell and was asked about recruiting.
Lincoln Riley Speaks About Owning Californing For USC Trojans
Riley joined Pickell where they spoke about a number of topics, including his praise for In-N-Out over Whataburger, but their conversation about recruiting stood out.
“You mentioned recruiting, I’m pretty biased having been from Southern California, I’m like hey Coach, we lock down the Trinity League, Mater Dei, Orange Lutheran, Servite, were good, we don’t need anybody else. How do you go about philosophically prioritizing California while also understanding, hey, were USC, this logo carry’s some weight nationally as well,” asked Pickell.
Also Read: USC Trojans Have Massive Recruiting Day Scheduled In June
Riley gave a response that should have USC Trojans fans grinning from ear to ear.
“It’s definitely an interesting balance. For us, it starts and ends with California. Like period. Being great in this state, being great in our home state, this is the flagship school, the most iconic program on the West Coast…And then from there, you’re right. It would be crazy of us to not take advantage of a National Brand.”
USC and Lincoln Riley have begun demonstrating this line of thinking with their actions, as stated above, but it is still good to hear him say it. We all know how great the talent pool is in this state, and it just feels special when they play for USC.
The Trojans currently have the 2nd ranked 2026 recruiting class and will have the opportunity to take the top spot with the way things are trending.
To watch the entire interview with J.D. Pickell, you can go here.