LOS ANGELES – The joyful roar from Penn State’s adjacent locker room echoed through the thin walls of the LA Coliseum on Saturday night as a crowd of reporters waited for USC coach Lincoln Riley to discuss another painful loss.
“We own LA!” shouted one of the victorious Nittany Lions.
“LA does us city!” a Penn State teammate roared in response.
When Riley took the stage a few minutes later, he made little effort to hide his frustration over what he described as a “very difficult loss.” USC fell to the nation’s fourth-ranked team 33-30 in overtime despite building a two-touchdown lead at halftime, opening a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter and pulling within of Penn State territory with a chance to win the game in the final minutes of the game. regulation.
The most recent second-half collapse hurt USC all the more as it marked the Trojans’ third one-goal loss of the season. They previously suffered two excruciating setbacks in the Big Ten road, giving up a seven-point lead at Michigan on September 21 and blowing a seven-point lead at Minnesota two weeks later.
“The reality is we’ve played the toughest schedule in the country through the first six games and we’ve had a chance to win every game,” Riley said. “That’s hard to do. It’s damn hard to put yourself in a position to win these games.
“I understand that the outside world will not see the good at the moment because they will focus on our record and the fact that we lost three games in the last game. I understand. That’s part of it. We all knew that when we signed up for big boys’ soccer. We have to do better at the end of the games. I have to do a better job, our coaches, our players. Because we do too many good things to put ourselves in situations where we can be in charge and win.”
There’s no denying that USC is just a few plays or timely stops from where it wants to be, but that doesn’t change the harsh reality the Trojans face. At 3-3 overall, they are no longer a realistic contender to make the College Football Playoff. They could win and most likely not even smell the 12-team field.
Worse, there’s little reason to believe USC can play such a role in the second half. This is a program that has lost all the momentum it had when Riley came on board. USC has lost eight of its last thirteen games in the past calendar year. That equals the worst thirteen-game stretch Clay Helton has ever produced.
These struggles have sapped much of the excitement that Riley’s arrival brought three years ago. The Saturday crowd of 75,250 people reacted tepidly when the Colosseum DJ asked: “Come on, you have to be loud!” There were so many pockets of Penn State blue and white in the crowd that the Nittany Lions bench gestured several times for more noise.
When asked how much responsibility he takes for the state of the program, Riley responded angrily to the question.
“It always falls on me,” he said. When have I ever shunned responsibility? I always take it. I’m the head coach. It’s all my job. Believe me, there is no one who takes more responsibility than me, so I don’t know where that question comes from.”
Since Pete Carrol left for the NFL in 2010 amid an NCAA investigation, USC has searched in vain for a capable replacement. Lane Kiffin was famously fired at the LAX tarmac after a poor start to his fourth season. Steve Sarkisian lasted less than two years due to personal problems. Interim coach Ed Orgeron charmed USC players and alumni, but received no vote of confidence from the administration. When USC was short of money and desperate for stability, Clay Helton kept the job for seven largely forgettable years.
When he dismissed Helton two games into a humiliating eight-loss season in 2021, then-USC athletics director Mike Bohn vowed to find a successor capable of “winning national championships and returning USC football to glory.” ” Enter Riley, seemingly the antidote to USC’s long, incestuous history of hiring head coaches with only Trojan ties.
Riley grew up in Muleshoe, Texas, a small town just 22 miles from the New Mexico border. He succeeded Bob Stoops at Oklahoma in 2017 and over the next five seasons produced a 55-10 record, four Big 12 championships, three College Football Playoff berths and two Heisman Trophy winners.
On a raucous evening in late November in 2022, Riley seemed to have USC on its way to recapturing its glittering past. The Trojans defeated Notre Dame to improve to 11-1 in Riley’s debut season. Caleb Williams dazzled a sold-out, star-studded Coliseum crowd with every downfield dart he delivered and every particular sack he escaped. USC needed just one more win to clinch its first-ever berth in the College Football Playoff.
Then came Utah 47, USC 24.
And Tulane 46, USC 45.
And months of investigation surrounding Riley’s reluctance to move on from embattled defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.
It’s never easy to fire a good friend, but Riley’s stubborn loyalty to Grinch caused him to lose the trust of many USC fans. He parted ways with Grinch only last November after USC fell to 119th out of 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision in yards allowed and 121st in points allowed.
This year’s defense has been respectable under new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, but Riley’s offense has fizzled in the absence of former Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams. Heir apparent Miller Moss has thrown five interceptions in his past four games, with his performance hampered by USC’s inability to block opposing edge rushers.
Riley demonstrated why he’s known as an offensive mastermind in the first half against Penn State on Saturday, when he drew up play after play and took advantage of USC’s superior skill position speed without exposing its pass protection issues. Most memorable was a clever reverse fake in the first quarter that fooled half of Penn State’s defense, allowing freshman Quinten Joyner to go 75 yards nearly untouched.
Penn State rallied behind tight end Tyler Warren’s school-record-breaking 17-catch, 224-yard night in the second half. Time and time again, Penn State moved Warren, lining him up in the backfield, at tight end or split out wide. Time and time again, the USC secondary lost sight of him. Early in the third quarter, Warren even snapped the ball, ran down the field almost unnoticed and caught a 32-yard touchdown pass.
“We knew he was going to be a challenge coming in,” Riley said. “We had a few reporting glitches and I think that’s what we’ll look back on. When you play such a very good player, you just want to make him earn it.”
What Riley will also look back on were a pair of fourth-and-longs from the fourth quarter that Penn State was able to convert. Those “crazy plays,” as Riley called them, set up a 14-yard game-tying touchdown pass from Drew Allar to running back Nicholas Singleton.
USC advanced into Penn State territory on its final drive of regulation, with Riley bleeding the clock and setting up a third-and-6 from the 45-yard line with 14 seconds left. Riley said he had a good feeling about his kicker’s leg if USC had converted. Moss instead threw down an early interception.
Overtime roulette ensued, and luck was once again not on USC’s side. Penn State fans behind the end zone celebrated as Michael Lantz pushed a 45-yard field goal wide left. Then it was the Nittany Lions bench that surged onto the field with joy after their kicker, Ryan Barker, hit the game winner from 36 yards out.
Moss called the loss “unbearable,” but also struck a hopeful tone as he noted how close it was.
“That’s the fourth-largest team in the country,” he said. “What does that make us?”
When Riley was asked after the game if there was a moment he would reflect on following Penn State’s comeback, he gave some perspective on how much he has taken USC’s recent struggles. He said he didn’t see his kids four nights this week because he was working so many hours to prepare for the Penn State game.
“I think about it every second,” he said. “When I go to sleep, I dream about it. And I wake up thinking about it. So I’ll think about it all.
“It’s just a very difficult loss. There’s really no way to mitigate that.”
