Lincoln Riley explains USC's defensive turnaround in second half vs. Cal

To avoid a three-game losing streak and an awful defeat vs. California, the USC defense stepped up in the second half to give the offense just enough time to complete the comeback victory.

In a high-paced contest, the Trojan defense forced two turnovers on downs, a fumble and an interception in the second half alone to help setup a double-digit comeback victory. They still gave up 49 points, but on the final stand, a two-point try for the Golden Bears after a touchdown with under a minute to play, USC stopped Cal.

At his coach’s show this week, Lincoln Riley was asked if the return of Bear Alexander in the second half is what sparked the improved performance. However, he declined to credit Alexander’s addition alone and admitted the unit made some huge errors in the first half before cleaning things up in the second.

“I mean, he helps, he’s a good player inside, but yeah, I can’t look at the first half and say, ‘well, it was just because he wasn’t there.’ I mean, the reality is we gave up two explosive runs in the first half,” said Riley.

USC actually led 10-0 but on California’s next two drives after USC took that lead, Bears running back Jadyn Ott scored more than 100 yards worth of touchdowns, one from 61 yards out and the other from 43. Those strikes got Cal back in the ballgame at 17-14 and the shootout was off and running. Riley lamented the mistakes on those runs after the fact.

“We have a defensive lineman come out of gap and a safety mis-fit and you have a D-lineman and a safety both got the wrong direction against a tailback that has great speed,” he explained. “That’s going to happen. It’s bad football, and again, it’s disappointing, because you should have two people right there and two people don’t do their job and that’s what it looks like. And then, we had a defensive lineman come out on the first one.”

The kind of errors Lincoln Riley says his team simply has to avoid and was able to in the final two quarters. “Those are mistakes that can’t happen. The reality is… in the second half, we didn’t make those mistakes.”

The Trojan head coach just couldn’t get over those two big rushing scores from Ott in the first half. He liked how disciplined his defense had played up to that point, but just one or two mistakes forced USC to pay the ultimate price early on.

“We were in our gaps, and both of the times, like, the guys are there, they’re right there. And then they shuck off and they want to make the play back inside, and then, all of a sudden, they’re not in their gaps and a good back’s going to find that and he’s just going to probe it and see if there’s a weakness in there and if one guy comes out of gap, there he goes. So yeah, those two runs change the game.”