Until Lincoln Riley was standing in his living room, late one night last December, DeCarlos Nicholson hadn’t given much serious consideration to leaving Mississippi. He’d spent his entire life in the state. His family lived there. His son had been born there. Everything he knew was within a few hundred miles radius of Hattiesburg.
But now here was USC’s head coach, asking the cornerback to consider moving a world away. Just come visit, he told Nicholson and his family. See what L.A. has to offer.
Riley wasn’t sure, at first, if they would.