Lincoln Riley believes expectations hurt USC in 2023

USC has put together two solid seasons under Lincoln Riley, compared to where the Trojans program was when he took over. However, after going 11-3 in 2022, USC finished the regular season with a disappointing record of 7-5 this season.

There were high expectations for USC ahead of this year as Riley’s team was being talked about as a potential College Football Playoff team. Riley recently sat down with The Athletic recently and shared that he doesn’t believe the team handled the expectations well.

“You could argue our expectations (this year) in the end hurt us. I don’t know that this team handled the championship expectations we had and I want us to have, but you also have to be able to handle those,” Lincoln Riley said. “You’ve got to be able to handle them in your preparation, but you’ve also got to be able to handle them in the event something doesn’t go your way, because this isn’t the NFL. This isn’t one where you can drop a couple here or there and still have everything on the table.”

USC opened the season 6-0, but once the Trojans dropped one game they continued to falter. USC was 1-5 over its final six games.

Riley pointed to one game in particular that impacted the way USC closed out the year.

“I think the Washington game in particular, when we didn’t win that game in the end, especially in the fashion it happened, and some of the things were off the table, I did not think we handled that well after that,” Riley said.

He doesn’t want to put a limit on expectations moving forward, but he also doesn’t want there to be a lot of negativity around the program after USC dropped some close games this season.

Riley believes the biggest difference between this year and last year is that the Trojans didn’t finish off games when they had a chance to win this year.

“Year 1 is a great example. We had a lot of holes, but you never put limits on what you can accomplish. You can have a year where you win a bunch of tight games. We were phenomenal in turnovers last year. You find a way to go get it done, even though maybe you’re not dominant,” Riley said. “You’re not the group that’s going to blow out 75 percent of the teams you play and play only two or three close games and you find a way to win them and you’re in good shape. That’s where the dominant teams in college football are at right now. We’re not to that point.”