Lincoln Riley to Southern Cal! This came out of nowhere.
I guess he thought “Do I take a team that I can win the Big 12 with most years and stay with them as they go to the SEC or do I split and try to take over the Pac 12”?
I guess he decided against the SEC grind with Alabama, UGA, LSU, A&M, UF and the like. LOL!
I didn’t think about it from that perspective. Interesting that you pointed that out. Thanks. He wanted no part of the SEC grind. LOL!
And honestly, he can really just kill it at Southern Cal and clean up on recruiting on the west coast…Especially if another coach out there currently has his sights on a job back in the southeastern United States? We’ll see. May not really mean anything though. 
That is an outstanding hire…fits them perfectly. Meanwhile, our incompetent leadership can’t decide whether or not they should fire a 7-5 coach
Wonder if the SEC has kinda hosed itself with all the expansion. Not a lot of attractive jobs now b/c of the expectations and resources within the conference. Pac12 pretty much has Oregon and USC that are the premier institutions going all out to support football. In the SEC you’re going to have OU, Texas, Bama, LSU, Georgia, Auburn, and to some extent Tenn and Fla that want to be the top dog in football and will spend accordingly. With that much being spent, not a lot of boosters are happy with “ah well, crappy bounce and we lost that game”.
Edit: forgot about TAMU too
I had heard rumblings that Riley wasn’t getting along with the boosters and admin there.
Opponents:
A. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana State, Texas A&M, Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Texas, Tennessee
or
B. Oregon, UCLA, Washington, Stanford, California, Utah, Colorado, Arizona State, Arizona
You’re a coach and your existence depends on doing well at your job. Which do you choose, A or B? 
I work with someone related to a coach on the OU staff. She is close to Riley - I have seen her texting him on multiple occasions. She said this was Lincoln not wanting to go to the SEC. LSU offered an insane salary which OU matched, but USC offered more (got to make up for the Cali prices) and he doesn’t have to play against Baga, UGa or TAMU every year. His pathway to the ship is infinitely easier. She even mentioned that the QB might follow Lincoln to LA along with at least 4 other players.
USC offered MORE??? Jesus. USC is gonna be a beast.
Incentives in his contract for conference championship and things like that
Good business decision for him
Heard what his contract included:
$110M + incentives over 10
Bought him a $6M house in LA
Bought out his house in OK
$1M signing bonus