Pete Thamel: Lincoln Riley made 'unforgivable' mistake by leaving timeouts on table vs. Penn State

USC dropped a heartbreaker to Penn State on Saturday, falling 33-30 at home against the Nittany Lions to fall to 3-3 on the year. Some questionable clock management down the stretch by head coach Lincoln Riley and his staff helped Penn State in the come-from-behind win.

USC and Penn State were tied at 30 when the Trojans got the ball back with 2:53 remaining in the fourth quarter. However, rather than play with a sense of urgency, Riley’s offense took its time.

Ultimately, regulation came to an end without USC using any of its three timeouts that it had remaining.

The ESPN College GameDay podcast discussed Lincoln Riley and his clock management down the stretch earlier this week.

“I was perplexed. … I’m like, ‘What’s he doing?’” Pete Thamel said. “I’m looking, I see the three lines on the screen. There are different ways to handle clock management. And there’s different arguments for different things. There’s studies and there’s analytics. … This one has none of that. This was just a plain, old, simple, baffling, unforgivable mistake. You can’t do what Lincoln Riley did there.”

The Trojans’ drive ended up taking seven plays to go 30 yards. It took 2:48 off the clock. The drive ended when Miller Moss threw an interception on third-and-6 from the Penn State 45 with only seconds remaining.

However, if USC had shown a little more of a sense of urgency, perhaps it could have finished off the game with a score and won in regulation.

“I didn’t understand why, with the weapons that they have, and Miller Moss, who I think is playing very solid, very good football. Why wouldn’t you maximize your opportunities?” Rece Davis said. “You’ve already lost a couple of games. Your opportunity here is to knock off an undefeated Big Ten juggernaut. Take every opportunity. Show your guys that you have belief in them and you’re going to give them every opportunity to move the ball down the field and put it away.

“And I felt like they were playing like they had something to lose. … But you know, I don’t know why he took them home with him. I didn’t really understand that.”