USC’s recruiting effort isn’t exactly what you’d call “bad,” but it’s not on the level of Ohio State or Oregon or other programs that have put together better rosters for 2024. USC could do better for 2025 and 2026, but the Trojans — on paper — don’t have the elite athletes that the Buckeyes and Ducks seem to have, at least not at the depth you’d expect from a national title contender.

Riley recently spoke about USC’s new strategy for recruiting high school talent.

“Our NIL and its development has made us more aggressive with high school guys than we’ve ever been before. That’s largely because our NIL has gotten a lot better and House of Victory and all the others have done a phenomenal job. You don’t want to go to a gunfight with a knife. In the beginning, we went to a gunfight with a toy sword, so we’ve definitely made great strides. Those guys have done a great job. I think our strategy — I know I’ve talked about this — how many high school guys we’re targeting has changed drastically. We’ve really changed, like I told you — not completely off the portal, I don’t think we’ll ever be completely off it, but you can just look at the numbers, right? We’re on our way to becoming the development program that we want to be long-term for the next 10 or 15 years. There’s been more high school recruiting. There’s going to be more; high school recruiting takes longer. It’s not as fast and furious as portal recruiting, and so you often have to have relationships that develop over multiple years. The consistency that we’ve had with certain parts of our staff for a long time makes a difference here too. It’s become a bigger part of what we do here every year. That’s going to continue to happen, and as long as our NIL continues to go up, you know we’re going to continue to be as aggressive there as we need to be.”

USC is currently climbing the team recruiting rankings. There is hope that with the expected progress on defense, the impressive roster of blue-chip players, especially on defense, will continue to grow. USC is currently No. 5 in 247Sports’ 2026 recruiting rankings.

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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lincoln Riley says USC recruiting won’t bring a knife to a gunfight