Everything Lincoln Riley said after USC's 34-32 loss to the Utah Utes

USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley was the only coach or player made available to the media following the No. 18 Trojans’ last-second 34-32 loss to the No. 14 Utah Utes on Saturday night at the Coliseum. Here’s everything Riley had to say about the loss, his team’s performance, outside expectations and where USC goes from here.

Riley opening statement:

“This is the first time I’ve come into this room not with a win, so definitely not a feeling that I want to get used to. As gut-wrenching a defeat as I can remember in my career. Hate it for the guys in there. We fought our tails off. We fought so hard, and what a great surge there in the fourth quarter to take the lead. One play away. Give credit to Utah. We’ve had three great games with them. Great competitors. It was a heck of a ballgame. Wish we would have played a little bit cleaner, though. Had some opportunities, especially during the first half, to separate a little bit but didn’t get it done. Stalled out offensively there in the second and third quarter and were able to kind of get it going there a little bit at the end. I thought defensively we battled all night. Had the huge pick-six, had some really big-time plays, some big plays in the kicking game as well. It was a good heavyweight battle. Two good football teams going at it, and it came down to the last play. The locker room’s pretty torn up right now, as it should be. We’ve had two tough losses in a row and obviously not how any of us scripted this. But you can’t script it — it’s college football. It comes down to little things here and there, and we haven’t quite played clean enough here in the last couple of weeks to take advantage of it. We have played very hard, and the guys really sold out. We got a lot better this week at practice, and our fight cannot be questioned. We have to play better, we realize that. Also it’s important for us to take stock of that we still sit in a very advantageous position in this conference. We’ve got some big opportunities coming up. There’s a lot left that’s going to happen. And if we’ll continue to fight and prepare the way that we did this week, we’ll have our chances. So we’ve gotta get past it, gotta get on to the next one. We’re kind of in one of those tough stretches that you gotta go dig yourself out of. This is when you get tested as a program; you get tested as a coach and a leader; you get tested as all the staff members, all the players in there. It’s how committed are you to what we’re building in this toughest time, maybe one of the tougher times that we’ve had here in the few years. Do you pull closer to that, or do you start to drift away from it? And that was our challenge to the guys in the locker room. I believe in the young men we have in there; I believe in the staff members that we have in there; I very much believe in how we’ll respond, and we’ll get the chance to define it. That’s the beautiful thing about this game. I’m proud of the fight. We know we’ve got to play better to play up to our capability. But I still know that there’s a lot out there for this team even though some people count us out, that’s okay. There’s a lot left for this team. I’m excited for our journey here the rest of the way. There’s still a lot left to play for.”

Riley on the offensive obstacles tonight:

“We stalled out there on a couple of drives, had a couple of big penalties, some negative plays, had a few opportunities down the field that we didn’t make. The turnovers, slash hanging on to the ball, still plagued us a little bit. We obviously didn’t turn it over as much as we did the week before, but the fumble was a big play because we had some momentum in that drive. And then Caleb (Williams) kind of lost hold of one there at the end. We definitely played a lot better offensively than we did the week before. But they’re one of the best defenses in the country. We were gonna make some plays, they were gonna make some plays. All the games with them have been like that. But we missed some big opportunities. I’m glad we got it going there at the end, obviously, but just gotta play a little bit cleaner, gotta take advantage and we gotta hang on to the football. We’ve been such a good hang-on-to-the-ball offense and a turnover team defensively. We had the big one there at the end defensively. But the last few weeks that’s plagued us against two of the better defenses in the country here in the last two weeks. That’s that’s the margin for error — to play really good and be successful. You’ve got to be really sharp. At times we were really sharp and at times we were not, so we obviously have to play better there.”

Riley on USC defending Utah’s final drive:

“We had a 15-yard penalty with all the momentum in the world, and then we gave up the big quarterback scramble on the play before the field goal. I thought we ran great calls. I thought we had a ton of momentum. Bear (Alexander)’s been an awesome player for us and he was really broken up about the penalty because that was the one that really gave them some life. And yet, you had them backed up, and our pass rush was starting to get home, and we were covering them pretty well. It felt like we were in great shape. They had a 4- or 5-yard play that all of a sudden turned into a first down and a 20-yard
play. He was trying to pull up, but it was just one of those plays. That was the big momentum one. And then we did a great job regaining momentum and pushing them back, and then the quarterback scramble there at the end obviously hurt us and put them in pretty advantageous field goal range.”

Riley on maybe needing a more balanced run-pass attack:

“When I’ve been asked about play-calling in my career, hindsight obviously always tells the story. At times we ran it well, at times we got stuffed. We had some big plays in the passing game and missed a couple others. So yeah, I think we can go back and look at it. And a third and short, that’s a pretty good call that we get stuffed on and miss-block. I had a couple of calls certainly that I’d love to have back. We had a couple throws we’d love to have back. I don’t think any one group was terrible, but everybody kind of, including me, had a few mistakes, and you can’t make that against good teams. And when we didn’t make them, we played well. But obviously it’s got to be better.”

Riley on adjusting his calls to get the USC offense back on track:

“My job is to get better just like everybody else. I’ve had, I think, an okay track record calling plays, so I’m confident in my ability and our ability to do that. But we can all be better for each other. That’s called football. You’re all in it together. I’ll never sit up here and say I did it all right and guys made the mistakes. We’re all in it together and our success is tied together and our failures are tied together. So we gotta all come back to work tomorrow with our heads up, ready to get better and go attack this challenge. And I can promise you, this team and program will get that out of their head coach.”

Riley on reframing expectations for USC with the playoffs out of reach:

“We’re in the middle of the season, that’s a dream world. You’re fighting your ass off every single week. We don’t come in every single week talking about winning a national championship, going to playoffs and I don’t know where that narrative starts. You come in every single week, try and fight your tail off to go play well and win a ballgame. It’s a strain every week to do it. And it’s a fight every week to do it. We’ve won a hell of a lot more here than we’ve lost. Are we satisfied at all sitting here at 6-2? Of course we’re not. I mean, it’s as much as it hurts anybody on the outside, I promise you it hurts us 10 times more. But just having been in this a little while, when you get too focused on the outside things, which I think at times maybe our team has been, then a lot of times you miss an opportunity right in front of you, that’s what’s so important for us to see right now. Do we have a nauseous feeling in our stomach right now? Yeah, it kills you to lose a game like this, especially when you fight your tail off and have an epic comeback like we have because it was an epic comeback against a damn good football team. But do you let it defeat you and take you away from the things that you’ve built over time, the momentum in this program? The honest opportunity is not coach speak, it’s not trying to create something that’s not there. There’s a real opportunity for this team right now, and this team can do it. Now, we have to play better, we have to play cleaner, and we have to coach better. If our fight stays like it was tonight, we’ll have a shot obviously against anybody and we got some cool opportunities coming up. So we gotta get ready for those, and what a hell of a story it would be.”

Riley on managing expectations and outside noise for USC:

“You can pretend, as a coach, that those things don’t exist. You can kind of duck your head in the sand and yeah, in a perfect world so would every single player, staff member, everybody in the program just be so hyper-focused that they don’t hear noise on the outside, or outside expectations or all of that. But that’s probably not reality either. There’s so much out there, the world for these guys, especially these kids, it has changed so much. It really has, and if you let the outside set expectations, you’re always being measured up against that. And I think for us as a program, we’re finding a little bit here in year two that you kind of take it and zoom out a little bit, not just where we’re at right now. But just the evolution of this program, last year, year one, expectations were kind of all over the place. We come in and probably, by and large, overachieve in a lot of ways. And I think it’s fair to say that the team last year probably did overachieve. Year Two, this is a different step. Everybody expects you to be good. Everybody expects that you could have a championship-caliber team. And when you’re constantly trying to live up to those expectations, you can kind of fall away from what puts you there in that position in the first place. And you can let the disappointment of not playing perfect, or when you won by 20 and you didn’t win by 40, and all the outside noise that comes with that…it can get to you, and I think at times, fair to say, it’s gotten to this team. I don’t think in a negative way, but I think we’ve really had to fight to keep things on our own terms. I think that is so important, I think that’s part of our progression as a program. When you haven’t been in this position in a while, it takes time, and it’s gonna take some scars. It’s gonna take some tough lessons to learn. These are lessons that we couldn’t learn last year like it wasn’t like this. It didn’t feel like this. This is part of our progression, and it sucks, it kills you. But this program will be better for it. Because for the first time in a while, there are going to be championship expectations here, and those aren’t going anywhere. We’re not going anywhere. We signed up to do this thing for a long time. I’m heartbroken for the team right now. In the big picture, this program will get more ready to be back on the stage that it was at for a long, long time, and I look forward to being part of that and a lot of great memories ahead. I think if we stick together as a program right now, just this team right now zooming back in, I think there could be some pretty cool things ahead for this team, and I’m appreciative to be along for the ride.”

Quotes courtesy of USC Athletics