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Lincoln Riley reveals the most impressive part of USC's win over Arizona

Alex Weberby:Alex Weber•11/01/22
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Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images

USC is off to a hot start under Lincoln Riley, with just one loss and one of the best offenses in the country to show for the season now that they’re two-thirds of the way through it. The one loss, of course, came a few weeks ago at Utah in a 43-42 shootout. Since the defeat, the Trojans had their bye week, then got back to business with a 45-37 win over Arizona. So, a solid bounce-back after a narrow loss, and now USC is right back in the thick if the College Football Playoff race.

Riley was pleased with the team’s performance, specifically in the second half. He knew they needed to respond strong after a week off and a loss the last time out. The start of the game looked a little bit like Utah, though. Arizona scored 10 points in the first quarter and kept it at a four-point game through half. But in the third and fourth quarters, USC poured on four touchdowns to seal the deal.

“Yeah it was good. I mean, it was good,” was Lincoln Riley’s quick summary, before he praised the team’s preparation throughout the last couple weeks.

“The week after, I mean, we went at it during the bye week. We were very aggressive and I think that was important, because we needed to take steps. I felt like the week of prep for Arizona was good. But, you know, we said it all the last two weeks. So like, we’ll find out on Saturday, right. And I think that time I was really proud of us.”

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Riley pointed to the team’s attitude at halftime as the factor which sparked the run from then on out. The team was just fired up at the halftime break and really came out and showed it the rest of the way.

“The halftime locker room, our guys were jacked. Like they they really didn’t even want to go into halftime at that point. Just come with the way that half ended and our guys were extremely excited to play and very confident walking out of that locker room. At halftime, they were really ready to go and it was cool to see them kind of respond in that moment with some of the things obviously that went against them. And mentally, they were very ready to play.”

Solid road conference win for the Trojans to get back on track. It’s back home to host California this coming week.