USC coach Lincoln Riley, right, talks with quarterback Caleb Williams during practice on March 24. (Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
During three seasons spent as the architect of USC’s offense, Graham Harrell went to great lengths to reassure fans his Air Raid could generate a capable run game. Despite that insistence, USC never got it going on the ground with Harrell at the helm. His tenure as offensive coordinator saw the Trojans collectively average fewer than four yards per carry, good for one of the worst rushing stretches in school history.
Lincoln Riley rose up through the same system, with deep roots in the same coaching tree. Like Harrell, who’s now at West Virginia, Riley learned under Mike Leach, one of the Air Raid’s earliest adopters, at Texas Tech.
But when the new USC coach was asked to explain his system earlier this spring, he wondered aloud if the label often ascribed to his offense even fit at all.
“The Air Raid stuff came from all of our background at Texas Tech,” Riley said. “Over the last seven years, we’ve had the highest yards per carry of any college football team in the country. We’ve [run] the ball at a high level for a long time, so I don’t know that Air Raid really fits anymore to be honest.”
If USC can successfully reinvigorate its rushing attack, it won’t matter what Riley calls his system. During the last four seasons, USC has ranked 82nd, 120th, 119th and 107th in rushing nationally. The Trojans have averaged 200 yards rushing or more per game just once (2016) since the heyday of Reggie Bush and LenDale White.
Riley, by comparison, hit that benchmark in each of his first three seasons as Oklahoma’s head coach and both seasons he spent as the Sooners offensive coordinator before that. Last season, only six teams averaged more yards per rushing attempt than…
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