Lincoln Riley excited about USC's 6-0 start but sees room for an even better second half

No. 7 USC is out to a 6-0 start under first-year coach Lincoln Riley, with just about everything going right for the Trojans so far in his early attempts to revive one of college football’s powerhouses. But Riley sees so much more room for growth in the second half of the season.

He’s riding that fine line of praising his team for its excellent start and buy-in while making sure to avoid overconfidence.

“There is absolutely a genuine excitement about that, and there should be,” Riley said in his weekly appearance on the Trojans Live program. “You can’t play mind games all the time, right? Sometimes you’ve just got to call it what it is, and it is what it is. We’ve found ways to win games.”

The Trojans are one of three unbeaten teams in the Pac-12 standings right now, boasting the league’s best conference mark at 4-0.

That’ll be put to the test this weekend with a road trip to face a Utah team looking to bounce back from a loss to undefeated UCLA. The key for USC is to continue pushing forward.

“I think some of the exciting parts for us is we’ve done it not completely at our best. We’ve done it without playing our best yet as a team and we’ve done it, like I said, different ways.”

USC’s 6-0 start product of ‘relentless’ messaging

One thing Riley noted is that his staff has been ‘relentless’ in setting the standards early in his tenure.

It’s one thing to win football games, it’s another to understand the process leading to those wins. Riley’s had remarkable success as a head coach and duplicating it has been about getting his players to fully buy in.

“It’s still a week-to-week thing, new challenges each week,” he said. “But what you’ve seen is I think there has been, they kind of had to go through the phases right? They kind of had to learn a little bit in the beginning about what this looked like and felt like, really on all sides.”

Riley does not expect the journey is over just because his team is sitting at 6-0 and ranked in the top-10 nationally.

“As it’s gone further you kind of had to break them down and build them back up. The breakdown certainly happened, and a lot of the guys have really hung in there and really understood that was going to be part of it and have trusted it. Then what’s kind of happened on the flip side is these guys are in good condition. Their mindset is in a good place. They’ve got a good scheme. They’ve seen that when they follow these things their teammates make plays, they make plays. It’s just kind of this domino effect that builds the confidence.”

Trojans must keep defending their turf

UCLA is also out to a 6-0 start to the 2022 season, but USC is in position to dictate how the conference race plays out. Those two will meet later in the season, on Nov. 19.

There are a lot of games before then, though.

If the Trojans want to remain in the driver’s seat, they’ll have to keep putting up results.

“The thing about it is like confidence can’t be fake, right?” Riley explained. “You see all the pregame hype or preseason hype, we always say it, I know I’ve said it on this show, like eventually you got to play football. There are some people that are excited about that and some people that want to hide behind it. Eventually the lights going to come on, no more talking matters and there’s nowhere to hide and you’re out there between the white lines and you’re either going to do it or you’re not.

“For our guys it’s been cool to see that for them they can, all the things that we’re doing show up on Saturdays and they are prepared and if they trust it and pull the trigger then good things happen. So I think their confidence is gaining kind of as we go along. It’s cool to see.”

Three of USC’s final six games are on the road, two of those against ranked opponents. Notre Dame also looms in the season finale, with the Fighting Irish showing significant improvement since an 0-2 start to the season.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of football left to be played.

So Riley continues to try to find the right balance between the ‘mind games’ he referenced and the reality. His guys have to keep pushing.

“The point to the guys right now is every year there’s a lot of teams that start off hot, start off 6-0 and then by the end of the season you don’t hear from them anymore,” Riley said. “6-0 is a great start but it’s just an opportunity to go and have a really tremendous second half of the season. We’ve got to continue to grow and ascend as a team. It’s special but it’s also a special opportunity, and we need to take advantage of it.”