A college football head coach plays a big role in recruiting. For instance, head coach Lincoln Riley is the face of the USC Trojans. That’s especially true in the transfer portal and NIL era when players can go to a different college every season.
That said, coaches get a lot of help from their assistants on the recruiting trail, so often, a top recruit has a better relationship with their primary recruiter or position coach than they do with the head coach. That leads to many big recruiting wins, for which the head coach still gets the credit.
That’s not the case with four-star quarterback Jonas Williams, though. On Friday night, he switched his commitment from Oregon to USC to play for Riley specifically in mind.
