Lincoln Riley breaks down challenges of playing on Friday

USC will play its first and only Friday game this season during Week 11’s matchup against Colorado. A shorter week, even by just one day, Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley discussed the obstacles that come with having less time for preparation than his players are used to.

“It’s a new challenge for us. You get your body clocks – you get so settled in from a schedule standpoint and then all the sudden it changes and it throws you a little bit,” Riley said. “Again, for us this is another thing none of us has done together yet. So we tried to be very clear about the plan from day one. We’ve really challenged these guys to handle it with a professional mindset.”

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Riley has preached the mental aspect of a short week in the sense that none of his players will get their normal amount of practice time and film reps as a typical week. Some guys might not be game-ready, so every rep becomes that much more important.

“The reality is, you can’t do things the way you do with 24 hours less,” Riley said. “It’s on us as a staff to spell out, ‘alright, here’s why, here’s the plan, here’s what you’ve got to go do,’ and the guys have to embrace it. I think we’ve handled it well, but we’ll see a lot of that with our performance [Friday] night.”

Regardless of preparation time, the Trojans are expected to win big against the Buffaloes. No. 8 USC is playing for its College Football Playoff hopes every week, and Colorado will look to play spoiler, catching the Trojans off guard and ruining Riley’s inaugural season at Southern Cal. Though, that’s easier said than done.

Kickoff between the Trojans and Colorado is set for 6:30 p.m. PT live from Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on FS1. USC is a 34.5-point favorite over the one-win Buffaloes.