Getty Image / Gina Ferazzi / Dustin Bradford
Deion Sanders has made it very clear over the past year that he loves Boulder, Colorado and plans on staying with the Buffs for the long haul but that didn’t stop ESPN’s Paul Finebaum from suggesting that Coach Prime should (will?) be coaching at USC next year which doesn’t make sense for multiple reasons.
On ESPN’s First Take, Paul Finebaum suggested there should be a plan in place for if/when USC fires Lincoln Riley. That alone is a stretch as it’s believed Lincoln Riley has a 10-year contract with USC that was signed in 2022 and they would presumably owe him a massive fortune if they chose to part ways with Riley this early in the contract. Nor would it make sense to offer a coach a 10-year contract and not give him enough time to turn a program around.
Finebaum didn’t seem to think any of that matters, however. He suggested that Lincoln Riley will be out at USC and Deion Sanders should be the new head coach because ‘Colorado isn’t prime time.’ Finebaum said:
Instead of harping on Lincoln Riley, I decided to come up with a solution. I thought about this the other day. Ok, maybe (Lincoln Riley) does well, maybe he doesn’t. But the answer is really moving forward, and I believe the answer after this season is Deion Sanders. He’s going to be tired of Colorado, because quite frankly it’s not prime time. He’s done as well as he can with his son and Travis Hunter and all the Stephen A. and Shannon Sharpe appearances. But that’s really going to dry up this year, because they’re not going to be that great. But you put Prime in Tinseltown, and I think you have one of the great combinations in history… I think Deion Sanders as the coach at Southern Cal is the answer to the problems.”
USC has made an enormous financial commitment to Lincoln Riley with the rumored 10-year contract. He led the Trojans to an 11-3 record in his first season but felt the Sophomore Slip hard when USC went 8-5 last year after beginning the season ranked #6 in the preseason AP poll.
This isn’t the first time in recent days that Paul Finebaum lambasted Lincoln Riley. He recently said “quite frankly, had I been the Athletics Director at Southern Cal, I would’ve fired Lincoln Riley because he’s yet to show, after many years as a head coach, that he knows anything about defense. He’s not going to the playoffs and he’s not going to survive Southern California. The Big Ten is going to eat him up. The one thing LA hates is a loser, and right now, I think Lincoln Riley looks like a loser.”
Nor is it the first time in recent days that Paul Finebaum has talked about Deion Sanders who he recently called “a Hollywood created celebrity” so it’s odd he has suddenly changed his tune on Coach Prime.
Lincoln Riley’s seat is hot, to be sure, as USC demands more from its program than 8-5 but the idea that he’d be fired three years into a 10 year contract is wild considering how much money USC would presumably owe him.
USC could certainly put up the $$$$ to get Deion Sanders’ attention if all that happens (which it won’t) but Deion has repeatedly made it clear he plans on staying in Boulder for years to come.