We’ve hit the first 3 stages of grief, everyone. Each with its own distinct response.

We’re 2 seasons removed from Lincoln Riley’s shocking move to USC from Oklahoma, and already the clock is ticking. He knows it, the USC administration — with a new athletic director — knows it, and an impatient fan base is zeroed in on it.

The offseason of grief has begun.

“We knew this was going to be a climb,” Riley said late last month, before his latest move of introducing the next quick fix to his overhaul at USC — new defensive coordinator D’Aton Lynn. “We knew that’s what we signed up for.”

Translation: Change doesn’t happen overnight.

Only it does in the NIL/free player movement era of college football. The Trojans, in Riley’s 1st season of 2022, were a Caleb Williams hamstring injury from winning the Pac-12 and advancing to the Playoff.

A year later, USC lost 5 games and looked like any other Pac-12 team scrambling to play defense and stay alive week after week. This, of course, leads to the offseason of grief.

Stage 1: Denial.

Riley saw what the USC defense looked like in Year 1 under coordinator Alex Grinch and persevered, anyway — diving head first into another season with Grinch despite USC giving up 30 points a game in Pac-12 games.

I know this is going to shock you, but USC then gave up 36 points a game in conference games in 2023 before Riley finally fired Grinch last month.

Stage 2: Anger.

When he fired Grinch, Riley declared that he was going to get it right defensively. He promised things would change because what USC had produced was “unacceptable.”

It’s on coaches and players and all involved to perform at a higher level, he said. He has never been more committed to making it work.

Stage 3: Bargaining.

We’re only 2 years into this thing, 2 years after then-USC athletic director Mike Bohn sold the soul of the athletic department to convince Riley to leave Oklahoma — with a massive guaranteed contract and other benefits — and take 1 of the top 3 jobs in college football.

And already, Riley is bargaining for more time. More patience. More understanding.

This, everyone, is where it typically turns south for most coaching tenures.

“Everybody wants the clean, smooth road to the top. And that’s for the movies, man,” Riley said. “The road to the top is jagged. And it’s gonna take its different twist and turns, especially coming from where this was.”

See what he did there? It’s hard to win college football games, he says, at a university with every possible advantage (financially and structurally) and the best geographic recruiting footprint in all of college football — you know, considering what he walked into.

It’s hard to win after Clay Helton burned this thing to the ground.

Helton was 21-6 in his first 2 seasons after replacing the last fired coach (Steve Sarkisian), who also left the place smoldering and full of baggage. Helton won the Pac-12 title in his 2nd season.

Riley is 18-8 overall in 2 seasons, and 14-7 vs. Power 5 teams. This season ended with losses in 5 of the last 6 games, and very easily could’ve been 7 straight losses had Cal and Arizona both not snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.    

But I digress, let’s get back to the bargaining.

“We’ve got to stay together as a program,” Riley said. “We’ve got to stay together as a fan base. We’ve got to stay together as a university. This is the tough times that you push through for the great things on the other side of it.”

This, ladies and gentlemen, is where it gets dicey. Once a coach begins to publicly bargain with the fan base and university, you can see the end on the horizon.

Because the university already has shown a commitment to Riley, both financially and structurally. They just allowed him to hire Lynn away from crosstown rival UCLA, and pay him $2 million annually with a $500,000 housing stipend.

Then there’s Riley pleading and pandering with the fan base. I think I can speak for every coach in every sport when I say you’ve got to be kidding me.

No fan base has patience. No fan base cares about bad hires, or loyalty to assistant coaches or a program being a few plays here or there away from a few of those losses becoming wins.

All they see are losses. That, and the millions paid by the university for wins that aren’t showing up.

Patience? Please. It’s USC, smack in the middle of 1 of the 2 best areas (Los Angeles and Orange counties) for high school football in the nation. Right there with Miami-Dade and Broward counties in Florida.

There’s no such thing as patience at USC, and Riley knew this going in. You can’t change the parameters just because the train is skidding off the tracks.

“The reality is, there’s gonna be things to fix,” Riley said. “We’ve got to continue to do a better job of growing in every area.”

Stage 4: depression.

USC moves to the Big Ten next season, and a finesse team that won games because it had the best player on the field isn’t going to cut it in a more physically demanding conference.

It’s not hard to see where this thing is headed. It’s not a “fix” — also, denial — it’s an overhaul of who and what you are. Philosophically, culturally and schematically — all things that should’ve been figure out Day 1.

It shouldn’t include a trip to a meaningless bowl game, where you’re trying to snap a 3-game losing streak against Louisville just to reach — of all things — an 8-win season.

Stage 5: acceptance.

The move to the Big Ten heightens the pressure on Riley to drastically change the fortunes of the program.

A new quarterback. A new defense. A new philosophy.

These 1-year fixes rarely work, especially when you’re staring down the barrel of win or walk.

“There’s no excuses,” Riley said. “It’s below what we expect here. It’s below the standard. I’ve got to do a much better job. I own all of that, and I’m going to fight my ass off in every single way to make sure this thing gets to where it’s supposed to be.”

There it is, the finality of acceptance.

The offseason of grief has arrived.