The USC football program has been placed on probation and will pay a $50,000 fine after the NCAA found the program violated rules regarding the number of coaches allowed to be engaged in on- and off-field coaching activities during the 2022 season and spring of 2023.
The NCAA found that eight football analysts at USC, who were not full-time staff members, “impermissibly participated in on- and off-field coaching activities, including providing technical and tactical instruction to football student-athletes” over a two-year period, exceeding the number of countable coaches allowed under NCAA rules by six.
As part of the investigation, the NCAA and USC agreed that football coach Lincoln Riley had “violated head coach responsibility rules” in failing to monitor the circumstances that led to the violations. Due to some of those violations occurring before NCAA rule changes in January 2023 and since Riley “was not personally involved in the violations nor aware of the violations at the time the infractions occurred,” the NCAA chose not to suspend him.
Keeping Riley safe from suspension had been a focus of USC officials throughout as they worked to cooperate completely with the NCAA’s investigation, which began almost 18 months ago.
On Tuesday night, Riley suggested that the NCAA”s decision not to suspend him indicated the violations were not viewed as “very serious.”
“You can work at a hundred different institutions, and the definition of [the NCAA rule] and how it’s interpreted is going to be different in a hundred different places,” Riley said. “I think you see the level of penalties that were levied. In this day and age, the head coach responsibility thing, it’s a big deal, and we get it. But if it’s something very serious, they’re going to suspend the head coach. So I think that kind of says what it was. We don’t take it lightly. We own the things we have to correct, and we move forward.”
In a statement, USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen said that the school had “worked cooperatively” with the NCAA since hearing of the potential violations in May 2023. At the time, USC didn’t have an athletic director. Mike Bohn had just resigned, and Cohen wouldn’t be hired for nearly three months. According to the NCAA’s report, the school “immediately instituted a thorough review,” interviewing players and coaches while reviewing dozens of hours of practice film from the spring of 2023.
“We identified and acknowledged violations, issued corrective measures, and submitted a negotiated resolution in a timely fashion that was approved by the Committee,” Cohen said in a statement. “We remain committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical behavior and integrity in our athletic programs.”
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The NCAA enforcement staff sent its letter of inquiry on May 31, 2023, acting on information it received about USC that “a member of the institution’s football staff (special teams analyst) assigned to noncoaching staff duties had provided technical and tactical instruction to at least one current football student-athlete” during spring practices the previous month.
USC responded to the letter on Aug. 3, 2023, confirming that special teams analyst Ryan Dougherty “engaged in brief five- to 10-minute informal, unscheduled meetings with two football student-athletes” who asked him for feedback from their spring 2023 film.
In conducting its review, USC informed the NCAA that it had found four additional football analysts had “exceeded the permissible scope of their job duties” during 12 on-field practices that spring. The four offensive and defensive analysts were found to have “assisted in drills, including handling equipment, and delivered verbal instruction and feedback” during drills and special teams sessions.
The NCAA asked, in response, that USC take a closer look at Riley’s first season as football coach, in 2022, to determine if USC had committed similar violations.
USC reviewed practice film from five practices in the spring of 2022 and 10 practices in the fall of 2022 and found that six football analysts “exceeded the permissible scope of their job duties when they engaged in on-field coaching activities that were similar in type, frequency and scope to what transpired in the spring of 2023,” according to the NCAA’s report.
The NCAA, in its report, deemed the investigation of USC to be “collaborative,” a markedly different tone than the school had historically taken with the organization’s enforcement staff.
That cooperation presumably played a major part in keeping Riley from facing suspension. In its findings, the NCAA notes that USC, Riley and its enforcement staff “agree that Riley is responsible for the violations that occurred during the spring of 2023,” when the four analysts provided on-field instruction.
Riley “rebutted” the presumption of his responsibility for the other violations that occurred before Jan. 1, 2023, when the NCAA changed rules regarding a head coach’s responsibility.
The NCAA enforcement staff, in its final report, ultimately assigned little blame to Riley, while admonishing the analysts involved for “lapses in judgment.”
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The NCAA concluded that Riley was “not personally involved in violations nor aware of the violations at the time the infractions occurred.” In its report, the NCAA lauded Riley for “a demonstrated track record of promoting an atmosphere of compliance and monitoring his staff.”
Riley, the report continued, “has consistently taken active steps to ensure the football program operates in a compliant manner.”
The NCAA has since lifted restrictions on the number of coaches allowed to provide on-field instruction, a decision that Riley applauded this fall. Before June 2024, when the change was made, football programs had been limited to 10 on-field coaches, with all other staffers barred from on-field instruction. Yet as staffs across college football ballooned with “analysts” as a means to find a loophole to those rules, schools pushed to eliminate the limit altogether.
In light of that rule change, Dougherty was elevated to special teams coordinator. As part of USC’s punishment, Dougherty will be restricted from practice and film review for six consecutive days during two weeks of the 2024-25 season.
The remaining analysts will be barred from practice and film review for six consecutive days each over the course of four weeks before the team’s last game.
As part of self-imposed punishment suggested by the school to the NCAA, USC also gave up 24 hours of countable athletically related activities for the football program during the 2023-24 season.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
