Sports LOS ANGELES — On a picturesque Friday night in mid-October, a prominent Division I faculty soccer coach strides onto the field at Hilmer Resort Stadium in Walnut, California, an jap suburb of Los Angeles, to explore the head-ranked high faculty group within the nation — Mater Dei — embark on its most up-to-date demolition of an overmatched opponent. He’s wearing a white hooded sweatshirt, tan athleisure slacks and his trademark rimless glasses. His Nike sneakers are navy blue and white. Wherever he goes, an armed security guard follows.
After several minutes spent soaking within the action from the sideline, the build he playfully chides the referees at some stage in timeouts, the coach winds his manner all the design through a tune and into the bleachers the build the family of 4-big name cornerback Daryus Dixson is seated reach midfield. He claps three cases sooner than greeting Dixson’s mother, who sports activities a gray hoodie bedazzled with crimson letters and numbers all the design through the chest and her son’s initials on the left sleeve. “How we doing?” he says with a grin. He shares a mountainous hug with Dixson’s father and settles into the bleachers for a halftime chat.
It’s no secret why this coach is right here the night sooner than his group plays a highly anticipated recreation on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mater Dei, that will accelerate on to function its season undefeated, has a roster so stockpiled with means that about a of the underclassmen reserves already preserve scholarship offers from Vitality 4 colleges. The starting quarterback is committed to Washington. The starting cornerbacks are committed to Penn Issue and Alabama, respectively. The starting running aid is one of three players who bear given verbal pledges to Oregon, with a fourth who will doubtless be a part of the Geese by the head of the weekend. Regarded as one of many wide receivers is being pursued by Ohio Issue, Texas, Oregon and Georgia. One other is committed to Oklahoma. A third, Chris Henry Jr., is the No. 1 overall participant within the country for the 2026 recruiting cycle but suffered a torn ACL. He’s already committed to Ohio Issue. There’s a 5-big name sophomore tight discontinue with scholarship offers from apparently every blue blood that you might perhaps factor in.
While right here’s clearly one of many most means-rich high faculty rosters in Southern California, which makes it a pure arrangement for local capabilities, the coach in attendance is no longer Lincoln Riley from USC — even supposing the Trojans bear signed more players from Mater Dei (16) than any diversified high faculty in California since speak-basically basically based mostly recruiting files changed into once first recorded in 2002, in step with FOX Sports Analysis. Nor is it Riley’s crosstown rival at UCLA, first-year head coach DeShaun Foster, who changed into once raised in interior sight Tustin, California, and is attempting to reestablish the program’s local footprint. As a replacement, it’s Penn Issue head coach James Franklin, who earned a verbal dedication from Dixson, the No. 116 overall prospect and the No. 15 cornerback within the 2025 class, earlier this year.
“Correct now we don’t bear an SC man, ?” first-year Mater Dei head coach Raul Lara said. “And it’s love, OK, what’s occurring right here? Again, to me, I deem our colleges deserve to function a higher job right here in California to preserve the flexibility right here.”
Retaining the flexibility in California changed into once amongst the core philosophical tenets for aged USC head coach Pete Carroll, who from 2001-09 assembled one of sport’s standard dynasties by successful two nationwide championships, four Rose Bowls and stringing together seven consecutive seasons with at least 11 victories. More than 73% of the high schoolers signed by Carroll and his employees at some stage in that stretch came from California, alongside with 40 recruits rated amongst the head 10 possibilities within the speak and 4 who carried out their respective careers as the speak’s easiest participant. The in vogue nationwide ranking for USC’s recruiting lessons while following that blueprint changed into once 2.8, with the 2005 and 2006 groups both touchdown at No. 1 within the country.
Even after Carroll left to educate the Seattle Seahawks, the Trojans abided by the same system below successors Lane Kiffin (70.4% from 2010-13) and Steve Sarkisian (78.4% from 2014-15), both of whom had spent time on Carroll’s employees in Los Angeles. And while the proportion of Californians began to dip below aged coach Clay Helton, who easiest signed 58% in-speak possibilities at some stage in his time to blame from 2016-21, it’s the design in which more precipitous decline below Riley that continues to irk a more wistful section of the fan execrable. That Riley is hovering around 42.6% Californians amid a 3-year stretch in which the program’s procure totals bear regressed from 11 in 2022 to eight in 2023 and easiest six to this level in 2024 has fueled about a of the wide-unfold criticism lobbed in his direction.
“That’s sincere a fixed at locations love this,” Riley said.
Although about a of the adjustments in roster construction can also be attributed to the modernity of faculty soccer — with things love social media, nationally televised games and NIL compensation making it less complicated for possibilities and their households to familiarize themselves with colleges in diversified parts of the country — Riley is broadening his means to high faculty recruiting by placing the next emphasis on soar-to-soar participant procurement. He and his employees don’t are attempting to load up on in-speak possibilities at some stage in years when their critiques level against more talented recruits, or higher tradition fits, in diversified parts of the country. (It’s price noting, on the replacement hand, that they’ve chanced on success alongside with California natives through the switch portal in fresh times.)
Peaceable, there’s more stress than ever for Riley to be sincere in 2025 after one more lackluster season on the field and a fresh recruiting class that ranks 13th nationally, fourth within the Wide Ten, and easiest includes three of the head 50 players in California as diversified elite capabilities cherry-picked most of the local means. USC did produce the signature of 5-big name quarterback Husan Longstreet (No. 34 overall, No. 5 QB) from Centennial High College in Corona, California, after flipping him from Texas A&M final month, but the category substances almost as many Georgians (four) as in-speak possibilities (5).
“We’ve tried to reach in right here and be up-front and sincere, , that we’re no longer basically going to steal every single Southern California child,” Riley said. “I imply, recruiting right here is restful a gigantic precedence. It’s restful the big precedence for us. But interior that, it’s no longer sincere recruiting, it’s evaluating and guaranteeing it’s the sincere child from right here. On yarn of I function deem it changed into once our evaluate that perhaps at cases right here, , the program had reached on some childhood on this build that perhaps within the event that they were in diversified locations, perchance they wouldn’t bear basically recruited.”
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“Clearly there were some vast players the build I came from [at Oklahoma], but it wasn’t a gigantic build and what would perchance be frequently known as an extremely fertile means execrable. Right here’s obviously a actually diversified abilities. … We’ll below no conditions sincere restrict ourselves to that due to we are attempting to switch procure the finest wherever they’re at, but I deem there’s furthermore a realization that quite lots of the finest are sincere right here.”
— Lincoln Riley, introductory news conference, Nov. 29, 2021
From the balcony affixed to Riley’s 2d-ground speak of job within the John McKay Center, a design of land the build the program’s fresh $200 million soccer facility will rapidly be built is easily viewed. The three-myth Bloom Football Efficiency Center, situation to be achieved within the summertime of 2026, is slated to consist of a locker room and players’ lounge, a weight room with garage-door procure entry to to the practice fields, suites for sports activities medicine and weight reduction arrangement, an array of group and positional meeting rooms, an NFL alumni locker room, a terrace replete with fire pits and ping pong tables, a scamper-through practice build total with digital technology and a room reserved for NFL scouts. Renderings of the fresh building are propped on easels staunch through the hallways of the group’s fresh home, which is shared with most of the faculty’s Olympic sports activities, for players and recruits to admire.
“You’ll deserve to reach aid for the enormous opening,” one of many communications representatives says to a visiting reporter.
Preliminary rendering of USC’s Bloom Football Efficiency Center, situation to be achieved within the summertime of 2026. (Photo courtesy of USC Athletics)
On this Thursday morning in mid-October, at which level the Trojans are one recreation into an eventual three-recreation dropping skedaddle, there are parallels to be drawn between the upturned soil the build the breathtaking fresh facility will doubtless be located and the prolonged roster overhaul that Riley continues to oversee. Riley described the order he inherited at USC as “broken down rather of bit,” with noteworthy deficiencies in companies, fundraising, staffing, NIL coordination and, most obviously, roster construction — especially once news broke in June 2022 of the program’s impending shift to the Wide Ten, a conference known for its ruggedness within the trenches. The Trojans’ realistic nationwide recruiting class ranking had slipped from an realistic of 4.4 below Carroll, Kiffin and Sarkisian to 17.2 below Clay Helton, who notched 21 wins over his first two seasons sooner than the program slipped into disarray from 2018-21, a stretch in which the Trojans easiest received 22 games blended. Integrated in that point changed into once the faculty’s century-worst 2020 recruiting class, which ranked 59th overall and easiest included one participant ranked amongst the head 345 overall. Riley’s first three lessons bear ranked 70th in 2022, eighth in 2023 and 17th in 2024.
Inside eight months of arriving at USC on Nov. 28, 2021, Riley hired the man with whom he works closest to shape the long high-tail of the program: Dave Emerick. Operating out of a magnificent smaller speak of job down the hall, Emerick joined Riley’s employees as the senior affiliate athletic director for soccer/overall manager in July 2022 after spending the earlier 10 years below the slack Mike Leach, first at Washington Issue after which at Mississippi Issue. He serves as the conduit between coaches and the personnel department, which contains 5 corpulent-time staffers fascinated with learning high faculty possibilities and switch targets, and the recruiting department, which includes 4 staffers who take care of visits and correspondence with doubtless players. Members of the personnel department conduct the well-known round of participant critiques after which explore film with the coaches to higher realize what Riley and his employees are attempting to search out. Emerick, who has turn out to be a lightning rod figure amongst disgruntled followers, connects the dots by spending his days on the phone with recruits, fogeys, agents and coaches.
“I deem having any individual else within the building that has needed to be accountable for all these diversified parts changed into once well-known,” Riley said, “due to you might perhaps procure these who are basically sincere, but they bear got tunnel vision. They leer their build, but they don’t repeatedly leer the mountainous image. I basically feel love Dave, due to of his abilities, is able to seem the mountainous image. And I deem that enables him to function his job at a high level.”
The recruiting technique that Riley and Emerick developed is in step with what they teach as the enviornment of abilities of USC, a rigorous tutorial establishment that blends its bustling metropolis backdrop with a highly scrutinized soccer program that has produced 557 NFL draft picks, eight Heisman Trophy winners and captured 11 nationwide championships. Discovering possibilities who can reach that atmosphere has led Riley to “a smaller pool” of players than he had grown aware of pursuing in earlier jobs, but it permits the Trojans to solid a magnificent wider find geographically and utilize more time attending to understand person recruits. Riley’s 2025 class includes players from Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Washington, as successfully as to states more usually known for his or her recruiting exports. Total, the amount of states represented in USC’s lessons below Riley has increased yearly, from four in 2022 to 12 to this level within the fresh cycle. Meanwhile, Carroll’s lessons from 2002-09 were represented by an realistic of sincere 5.75 states per year, alongside with an ’03 group that also ranked No. 2 within the country no subject easiest signing players from California (24), Colorado (1) and Louisiana (1).
Whether or no longer by replacement or an inability to procure recruiting battles — or, perchance, both — the fresh USC employees has turn out to be a long way much less reliant on in-speak possibilities, powerful to the chagrin of longtime followers. Riley’s first recruiting class included the two best-rated recruits from California in 5-big name cornerback Domani Jackson (No. 5 overall, No. 2 CB) and 4-big name tailback Raleek Brown (No. 42 overall, No. 3 RB), but both players damage up transferring. Since then, the Trojans bear easiest signed 9 of the speak’s top 75 players over the final three recruiting cycles blended as competitors love Oregon (16 signees) and Alabama (eight signees) proceed raiding the build with witness-catching success. The Crimson Tide bear already secured three of the six best-rated players in California for the 2025 cycle.
USC plans to preserve the route.
“We’re no longer sincere going to steal a man due to he’s from California,” Emerick said. “I function deem that [the] willingness of outside guys to reach in and [the] willingness of California childhood to leave has increased as the NIL era has changed things. But our first precedence is conserving these local childhood that we desire right here — after which going from there and building the category around these guys.”
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“Our recruiting efforts are to search out these special more or much less competitors, these these who repeatedly reach for the head. We query for programs to fabricate these of us when they display hide they bear got these capabilities. After I deem of the tradition and I situation forth with what we are going to function within the program, it’s a long way to search out these who match that vision.”
— Pete Carroll, introductory news conference, Dec. 15, 2000
All the design in which through the 9 seasons Carroll spent at USC, he developed a convention for National Signing Day that fervent the fresh players who would perchance perhaps be returning the next year. It began with everyone gathering in a gaggle meeting room once the letters of intent from incoming rookies had been bought. And then Carroll, known staunch through his profession as a master motivator, would roll highlights of the total signees and designate sincere how rapidly the extremely-talented novices would perchance perhaps be pushing the veterans for taking part in time. The room repeatedly erupted with trash focus on and cheers.
“Culture sooner than plan,” said Norm Chow, the Trojans’ offensive coordinator from 2001-04. “And that changed into once the vogue that group changed into once.”
It changed into once one of many programs Carroll incubated a convention of competitors in line alongside with his obsession with the Latin root of the note — competere — which manner to strive together in preference to striving against. After being fired as head coach of the Contemporary England Patriots following the 1999 season, Carroll had spent a year out of soccer making ready for his subsequent job. He read a book by legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden titled “A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court” and grew to turn out to be smitten by finding programs to copy that level of success. He crammed notebook after notebook, yellow upright pad after yellow upright pad, with tips for what he wanted on daily basis of the week to query love at any time when he returned to instructing. Now no longer lower than three of us passed on the USC job sooner than the faculty hired Carroll, who hadn’t worked on the collegiate level since 1983, in a switch that changed into once loudly criticized by local media.
Carroll laid the groundwork for the recruiting dominance to reach by conserving assistants Ed Orgeron and Kennedy Polamalu from the earlier employees. The aged, who would accelerate on to procure a nationwide championship as head coach at LSU in 2019, bridged the gap with local high faculty coaches and possibilities while Caroll and the novices bought acclimated to Los Angeles. The latter, who’s now the running backs coach for the Seahawks, changed into once accountable for outlining the “belief of what recruiting at USC would perchance perhaps bear to restful be love,” in step with Chow. And what Polamalu envisioned changed into once placing an impenetrable fence around California.
“I deem we were repeatedly taking a leer to procure the finest child, the finest participant within the speak of California,” said Yogi Roth, the quarterbacks coach at USC from 2005-09. “And if we ever left the speak, it changed into once for what we deemed to be a that you might perhaps deem of first-round draft pick. It changed into once basically decided in that regard.”
The participant that Chow believes grew to turn out to be the tide for USC’s recruiting efforts — a prospect he described as “the pied piper” — changed into once defensive cope with Shaun Cody, a 5-big name recruit from Los Altos High College in Hacienda Heights, California, an jap suburb of Los Angeles. Cody changed into once rated the No. 1 defensive participant within the country and a top-5 recruit no subject enviornment when the Trojans flipped him from Notre Dame, atmosphere in flow an avalanche of in-speak success so dominant that it indirectly spawned jokes about coaches from diversified capabilities easiest visiting California for breeze; attempting to pry local stars a long way off from USC changed into once idea about a damage of time. As Caroll’s group accelerated from a 6-6 outfit at some stage in his first season to hoisting the nationwide championship trophy in his third, the Trojans were remodeled into one of many city’s must-leer attractions for recruits and celebrities alike.
From 2003-06, Carroll secured the speak’s No. 1 participant in four consecutive lessons and signed at least four of the speak’s top-10 possibilities in every of these cycles. He inked three 5-big name running backs from California in ’06 by myself — Stefon Johnson (No. 10 overall), Allen Bradford (No. 17 overall) and C.J. Gable (No. 26 overall) — to headline a category that included 10 of the speak’s easiest 19 players overall. USC averaged 13.9 in-speak signees per year below Carroll from 2002-09, a stretch that coincided with 91 victories on the field. So magnetic were Carroll and the Trojans to local possibilities that his assistant coaches began to in actuality feel love evaluators more than recruiters. Their easiest task changed into once to name the finest players due to everyone desired to reach.
“The vogue [Carroll] entered a room, the vogue he talked to me changed into once very love, ‘Hi there, we’re going to triumph over the sphere,’” said aged USC and Lengthy Seaside Poly offensive cope with Winston Justice, a 5-big name recruit and the No. 32 overall participant within the 2002 recruiting cycle. “And as a young child from Lengthy Seaside, California, if any individual is telling you, ‘Hi there, I are attempting to triumph over the sphere,’ you desired to function that with him, ?”
It’s the same reason why actor Will Ferrell changed into once a frequent guest at USC’s practices, the build he changed into once known to throw the ball around with players. It’s explanation why rapper Snoop Dogg grew to turn out to be a mainstay on the sidelines and once engaged in a freestyle fight with cornerback Eric Wright. It’s why Roth created what he believes changed into once the well-known-ever faculty soccer weblog fascinated with bringing followers within the aid of the scenes of group meetings and diversified intimate moments. All americans desired to seem what the Trojans were doing as they grew to turn out to be synonymous with Hollywood and morphed into a cultural phenomenon within the pre-social media era.
“Being a SoCal child enjoying at USC,” said Mark Sanchez, a 5-big name quarterback at Mission Viejo High College and the No. 3 overall participant within the 2005 recruiting cycle, “that changed into once a mountainous deal.”
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So what took speak?
More than a dozen interviews with aged coaches, players, recruits, USC staffers and industry experts level against a confluence of things that contributed to the program’s regression and subsequent shift in roster-building philosophy once Carroll departed. His prompt successors, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, adhered to the same California-basically basically based mostly recruiting technique that Carroll had devised, with both men signing more than 70% in-speak possibilities all the design through six blended lessons. But things began to vary when the NCAA handed down a stiff batch of sanctions in June 2010 — a two-year postseason ban, well-known scholarship reductions and more than a dozen vacated wins from the Carroll era, the principle impetus for which were impermissible gifts accredited by Heisman Trophy-successful tailback Reggie Bush — that chipped away on the Trojans’ infallible mystique. With easiest two 10-procure seasons from 2010-15, neither of which resulted in trips to a BCS bowl recreation, USC’s entice amongst local possibilities began to wane.
This design’s vice grip on in-speak recruiting changed into once extra eroded by the digitalization of participant acquisition in faculty soccer. Functions love Hudl, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and FaceTime catalyzed the simultaneous accelerate with the circulation of files from players in every bit of the country to instructing staffs hundreds of miles away. With out warning, possibilities would perchance perhaps initiate to kind connections with colleges they’d never even visited impartial by being linked to their phones. And once the NCAA permitted name, image and likeness (NIL) legislation in July 2021, opening the door for recruits and their households to bear breeze costs covered and even be compensated for taking decent visits, the basis of enjoying somewhere diversified than USC grew to turn out to be an increasing form of attention-grabbing to many local recruits.
“It’s an limitless program,” said four-big name linebacker Noah Mikhail, a native of La Verne, California, who took an decent consult with to USC sooner than signing with Texas A&M earlier this week. “But I deem sincere class-basically basically based mostly it’s [about] what of us are basically attempting to search out. And for quite a total lot of us in Cali, it’s an out-of-speak program.”
Which is with out doubt one of many the explanation why Riley and his employees bear swung — and swung mountainous — in diversified parts of the country since taking on the program, aiming to capitalize on what defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn described as an witness-widening raise out at any time when recruits leer coaches in SC tools visiting their faculty. At one level or one more at some stage within the 2025 cycle, the Trojans held verbal commitments from six non-Californians now ranked amongst the head 60 players within the country, alongside with a trio of 5-big name possibilities. But none of the six damage up signing with USC, and one more borderline 5-big name prospect — quarterback Julian Lewis from Georgia — changed into once committed to the Trojans for more than a year sooner than flipping to Colorado final month.
For followers that had grown aware of top-notch recruiting, every out-of-speak misfire is compounded by Riley’s inconsistent efforts on the house front, the build Alabama and Texas A&M both signed more top-10 players from California on this year’s class than the Trojans did. There is supreme stress on USC’s instructing employees and NIL collective to push these high-profile, out-of-speak recruitments all the design through the function line within the event that they aren’t being buttressed by a security find of local stars.
“USC has confirmed they are able to commit these guys,” said Steve Wiltfong, vp of nationwide faculty soccer recruiting at On3 and the aged director of recruiting at 247Sports. “But they bear got no longer confirmed they are able to tag these guys sincere yet.”
There are, with out a doubt, exceptions to that overall rule — and with Wednesday afternoon came a mountainous one when the Trojans landed 5-big name defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart (No. 16 overall, No. 3 DL) from Louisiana. The most attention-grabbing higher-rated non-Californian signed by Riley at some stage in his time at USC is aged 5-big name wideout Zachariah Branch, a Nevada native and the No. 4 overall prospect within the 2023 cycle.
But even with Stewart’s signature, it’s that you might perhaps deem of that the program’s finest recruiting victory in fresh weeks took speak on Nov. 8, when a staffer from nationwide powerhouse Mater Dei posted a teach on social media of Riley visiting the campus. Head coach Raul Lara called the meeting “an limitless initiate to our relationship,” at some stage in a immediate interview with the Orange County Register.
And perchance that’s Riley’s first step against reclaiming California.
“It is advisable well bear gotten to bear sufficient self belief and belief on your setup, your of us and going through your process for what wins,” Riley said. “And would perchance perhaps bear to you preserve doing these items, then indirectly — whether [it’s] subsequent week, subsequent year, at any time when — indirectly the outcomes that you’d like and your supporters and all that desire, indirectly it reveals up.”
— College soccer editor Sean Merriman contributed reporting.
Michael Cohen covers faculty soccer and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Wide Ten. Put together him at @Michael_Cohen13 .
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