Lincoln Riley details how USC needs to take the next step to 'get over the hump'

USC was one win away from making the College Football Playoff in Lincoln Riley’s first year as head coach. 

Instead, the Trojans failed to get over the proverbial hump with back-to-back losses to Utah and Tulane in the Pac-12 title game and Cotton Bowl, respectively. It was an immense turnaround for the Trojans after winning just four games in 2021 and there’s no doubt Riley brought his magic over from Oklahoma.

However, expectations grew from winning the conference to winning a national championship in a short span under Riley. He discussed what USC needed to take that next step following the heartbreaking loss to Tulane.

“Well, it’s a long answer to that,” Riley said. “You know, you come in here day one, and you’re trying to, in a lot of ways, just starting to teach these guys how to compete and what championship habits look like. I mean, you’re starting from the complete ground floor on everything. We’ve learned a lot of things, we’ve grown in a lot of ways and that’s why we’re at this game and why we’re an 11-win team and we’re two plays different from being who knows where?”

However, Riley pulled back and said there was plenty of work to be done before USC could talk about being in the position to win a national title.

“But there’s still so much more to go to be in that position where you close out a conference championship game or you win a big bowl game like this or win a semifinal game or win a national championship, right,” Riley said. “It’s a lot of us in that staff from, I’ve seen it and we’ve won, it’s been a lot of times. We’ve made just a couple of more than the other one and a half times when we haven’t won and it’s been right there. 

“That’s what’s painful about it … I think we’ve made a lot of big jumps this season to get over that hump. (But it’s) equally as challenging as just getting this thing started like we all did this year. And so it’ll be a big challenge.”

However, the coach is confident in what’s next for the program.

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“But we know what we’re doing,” Riley said. “We know the areas that we have to get better. We know the things that we have to address. We’ll spend a lot of time on it and get some clarity, let this one kind of soak in and get past it. And we’ll go back to work.

“We didn’t come here for a one year deal, we knew that it wasn’t when we signed up to come to USC. So this one hurts but also it gives complete clarity on what we need to do next, and that’s go back to work and keep building and developing our program.”