Lincoln Riley on USC's loss to Minnesota: 'We're two plays away from probably being 5-0'

Lincoln Riley knows how close this team is to an undefeated record: two plays. Apparently, that’s how the USC coach sees it after an upset loss to Minnesota Saturday night.

The Trojans also lost to Michigan, who in turn, lost to Washington Saturday as well. So how good is USC?

The film would suggest there are a lot of things to like about this team compared to the 2023 version. Riley maintained USC is close but the Trojans are what their record is: 3-2.

“Disappointing ending to the game, a hard fought game,” Riley said. “We knew we would be coming into, you know, a motivated team, a really good atmosphere, and (we needed) to play really good football. Reality is, we did a lot of good things on all sides, but we … just didn’t play good enough to win at the end of the day. 

“We put ourselves in a great position there at the end of the game. You know, didn’t get it done. Give credit to Minnesota. Those guys played well, played hard. It was a really close game. Obviously, came down to just inches right there at the end … That’s the frustrating thing for our team right now. I mean, we’re two plays away from probably being 5-0.”

In this one, Riley’s team was in Minnesota territory. However, QB Miller Moss threw an interception in the end zone and the Gophers took over with less than a minute to go.

“We’ve had opportunities to win those games, and so we’ve put ourselves in those positions, which is hard to do on the road against quality teams,” Riley said. “But obviously we’re frustrated that we haven’t finished them off, and we’ve got to close the gap play a little bit better on any of the three sides, which we’re going to hold all three sides accountable, all the coaches, everybody. We need to be a little bit better because we got the makings of a really good team in there.”

USC has to turn around and host Penn State in six days. That won’t make things any easier.

If Riley says it comes down to a few plays, they’ll have to cross all of their “I’s” and dot their “T’s” because the Nittany Lions can certainly run away from the Trojans.

As it stands, Riley is 3-2 and this year, but the year is by no means over with seven games left.