Lost in the noise of dramatic introductory press conferences, repeatedly blown fourth-quarter leads and perplexing game management is whether or not Lincoln Riley is on schedule to make the USC Trojans a preeminent West Coast college football brand and a perennial national title contender for years to come. How does going into year four without a playoff appearance stack up against the trajectories of the best coaches and programs since the turn of the century? Without further ado, below is the list of the 14 coaches that have won national titles since 2000 and their years on the job when they reached the sport’s pinnacle:
How Does Lincoln Riley’s USC Trojans Compare To Champs
| Season | Team | Coach | Year on Job at time of First Title w/ Team |
| 2000 | Oklahoma | Bob Stoops | 2nd |
| 2001 | Miami | Larry Coker | 1st |
| 2002 | Ohio State | Jim Tressel | 2nd |
| 2003 | USC | Pete Carroll | 3rd |
| 2003 | LSU | Nick Saban | 4th |
| 2005 | Texas | Mack Brown | 8th |
| 2006 | Florida | Urban Meyer | 2nd |
| 2007 | LSU | Les Miles | 3rd |
| 2009 | Alabama | Nick Saban | 3rd |
| 2010 | Auburn | Gene Chizik | 2nd |
| 2013 | Florida State | Jimbo Fisher | 4th |
| 2014 | Ohio State | Urban Meyer | 3rd |
| 2016 | Clemson | Dabo Swinney | 8th (not including interim partial first year) |
| 2019 | LSU | Ed Orgeron | 4th |
| 2021 | Georgia | Kirby Smart | 6th |
| 2023 | Michigan | Jim Harbaugh | 9th |
Note, that there are 14 coaches but 16 rows on the table, given Nick Saban and Urban Meyer both won national championships at two different schools. It is staggering to see that 10 of the 14 coaches (and 12 of the 16 instances) resulted in a coach winning the national championship within four years on the job. The only exceptions are Smart, Brown, Swinney, and Harbaugh.
In the case of Smart, he may have won the national title at Georgia in year six but had the Bulldogs in overtime of the national championship game against Alabama (i.e. the famous Tua Tagovailoa throw to Devonta Smith) in year two. USC Trojans fans painfully know Brown’s title run well and while that Vince Young 4th down scamper (his knee was down in the first half by the way) came in year eight, Texas finished in the top five by year four of the Mack Brown tenure.
It did take Swinney until year eight to finally break through, but he had the Tigers play for it all in year seven against Alabama, while also inheriting 20 years of Clemson irrelevance and mediocrity. For context, 20 years ago, the USC Trojans were the face of the sport. Furthermore, when both Brown and Swinney had Heisman finalist-caliber quarterbacks (Young, Colt McCoy, DeShaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence), they always contended for the national championship.
The true outlier in this dataset is Harbaugh and while his tale can be spun as a story of resilience and conscientiousness, the play-stealing scheme can’t be ignored. For a team to have six years of mediocrity, then suddenly and exponentially rise to the top of the sport for three years, only to most likely be unranked the year after without any semblance of quarterback play, is too coincidental to suggest bad actors didn’t have a significant impact on outcomes. Harbaugh at Michigan is in the same ilk as the steroid era when discussing any home run records in baseball.
The data has overwhelmingly spoken – a 2025 playoff appearance should be the baseline for Lincoln Riley to keep his job. Without that, coupled with his $10M salary and two years with the #1 draft pick as his signal caller, one can argue nobody has done less with more in the 21st century.
