Lincoln Riley, Shane Lee explain how UCLA comeback shows how far USC has come in Year 1

Lincoln Riley and his USC squad pulled out the win this weekend in a shootout with No. 16 UCLA, defeating the Bruins 48-45. The win moves the Trojans up to the No. 5 spot in the AP Poll, their first top-five appearance since 2017. They also secured themselves a spot in the Pac-12 Championship game in their win on Saturday, something that may have seemed improbable this offseason as they built their newly constructed team primarily through the transfer portal. Riley was asked what the biggest sign of growth was from the offseason to now that he saw on display from his team this weekend.

“Being down 14 nothing and not even flinching, not even thinking about flinching,” Riley said. “Because you build these games up in your head and the problem becomes when you try to decide what’s gonna happen before it happens. You get so excited to play, you’ve got a think like dream about we’re gonna play this unbelievable game and get off to this lead, you never sit there and think oh well we’re gonna get down 14 nothing.”

Riley used a story from his days in Oklahoma as an example for his team, which clearly worked as they responded to being down 14-0 in the first quarter to scoring 21 points of their own in the second quarter.

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“But I actually told the guys last night, I was referencing to one we were in last year at the other place and all of a sudden we were down like 28-7 at half and I kind of mentally told the guys we are capable of being down 28-7 at the end of the first quarter,” Riley explained. “We’re capable of being down, we can make a lot of great plays but we can make some mistakes to, we can have some things go our away, the team we’re playing is a good team.”

Riley also spoke on the importance of some unsung heroes stepping up big for the Trojans in their game, including defensive end Korey Foreman, who had the team’s game-sealing interception despite only recording 12 tackles on the season for USC.

“You can’t right the script first, you just gotta be ready to respond and to respond with discipline and for us to just respond like that over and over. The other thing I would say is how many guys stepped up that maybe haven’t had a statistically a huge year tonight right?” Riley asked. “Obviously Korey there at the end, Darwin Barlow, Austin (Jones), you could go down the list and I think we keep talking about the closeness, and culture, and togetherness of this team and I think it was on full display tonight.

Trojans linebacker Shane Lee also explained though his eyes how the Trojans have grown and evolved how far along they’ve come in their first season under Riley.

“It means everything, kind of just thinking back to when we all got here the main thing we wanted to do was come together and have an unbreakable brotherhood. Through our time here I think we would all agree that we’ve seen growth in the bonds that we have with each other and our team, the energy and passion that we play with, we play for each other, it’s something you have to be a part of to feel,” Lee said.

Lee ended the game as USC’s leading tackler along with an interception of his own, as he spoke more about the key to the Trojan’s success this year.

“But to me that’s the biggest reason why we’re here and that’s what’s gonna keep these championships, keep getting us in these big games, keep leading us to success and just how much we can rely on each other and how much we can love each other honestly,” Lee said.