Swanson: USC’s Lincoln Riley bets big on Gary Patterson at defensive coordinator

LOS ANGELES — Down to his third strike here with defensive coordinators, Lincoln Riley is betting big on Gary Patterson.

He’s pushed all his chips in on GP. It’s either going to pay off handsomely or fail miserably, because, as Patterson has spent decades telling the 840 or so players who came through his TCU program, “winning is not a sometimes thing.”

It’s all or nothing.

So, to shore up his defense, Riley has gone and grabbed a College Football Hall of Famer and two-time National Coach of the Year.