Musings from Arledge: Run. The. Football.

Last week, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti was in a tight game with Washington at the half. He came out in the second half and ran the ball on 88% of his plays. He didn’t think Washington could stop the run, so he kept running it.

Cignetti is 9-0.

Lincoln Riley had access to that film. But Lincoln Riley is, by all accounts, an offensive wizard and a quarterback whisperer. He makes multiples of what Cignetti makes—about a million dollars per game or, over the last two years, approximately two million dollars per win. He coaches at a program that was once known as Tailback U, because it had a rich history of running the ball until defense’s submitted from the physical onslaught. But Riley doesn’t subscribe to that philosophy. He has a better idea.

Riley is 4-5.

It’s not that Riley’s teams can’t run the ball. They can. It’s that Lincoln Riley himself doesn’t want to run the football. And everybody knows it. Against Minnesota, USC’s halfbacks combined for 178 yards on 24 carries. Minnesota’s defense couldn’t stop them. But Riley could stop them, and did. Just as Dean Smith was the only person who could keep Michael Jordan under 20 points, most weeks Lincoln Riley is the only person who can keep USC under 200 yards rushing. As Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck put it in a biting post-game comment: “You could just tell, they were running the ball, but they still wanted to throw the ball.”

Yep, they sure did. They threw it 60% of the time in that game, which is actually well below the season average. And the Minnesota game took a turn for the worse when Miller Moss threw a back-breaking interception on 3^rd and 4 from Minnesota’s 35. Cignetti and Fleck would have run it twice from there. They both might have learned from the failure to run it twice from there. Riley is too smart for either of those things. 

The Big 10 Network commentators showed a stat last night about USC throwing the ball more frequently in road games than any other team in the country. Riley was not excited about the stat, I suppose, and decided to up the percentage even more. Playing against a team that has struggled to stop the run, Riley came out and chucked the ball 29 times in the first half. You might say that USC tried to throw the game away in the first half. 

It started its first possession at the 50 but insisted on throwing the football; they threw on two of their three plays and went three and out. 

They started their second possession at the Washington 37 (!) and immediately went to the air. Miller Moss threw a bad ball that was picked. 

The Trojans started their third possession on their own 40 and then immediately got a Washington penalty to make it 1^st and 5 at the 45-yard line. Obviously, everybody knows what you do on 1^st and 5 from close to midfield, right? You throw it three straight times, silly. That’s what Lincoln Riley did. And on 3^rd and 4 from the Washington 35 yard line, a situation where every Pop Warner coach in the country knows you can run it on third down (since you can always go for it on fourth), Riley throws the ball. Incomplete. Very long field goal attempt. Miss. And USC quickly finds itself down 10-0 after three straight drives starting in amazing field position. 

It’s hard to know what USC could have done in that first half had it tried running the football against a defense that struggles to stop the run. But having thrown the ball 29 times in the first half against the nation’s top-ranked pass defense and scoring an embarrassing seven points as a result, Lincoln Riley’s team left the field, and Riley told the sideline reporter that the key to the game would be to get the run game going. Ya think, Linc?

In the second half, USC did start running the ball—pretty well, actually. Here are Woody Marks’s gains to start the second half: 4, 15, 14, 13, 16, 3. So they ran it … right up until the point when Riley didn’t want to. On the first touchdown drive of the second half—a drive where USC had run five times for 47 yards—Riley abandoned the run on 2^nd and 9 from the Washington 37. That’s four-down territory, so it’s not clear why Lincoln Riley panicked on 2^nd and 9. But he did. And he found himself in 4^th and 9 as a result. Fortunately, that time USC’s passing game came through. That time it came through.

Two series later the Trojans weren’t so lucky. Please understand that at this point, USC had stopped Washington on all three of the Huskies’ second-half possession and had scored two touchdowns of their own to take the lead. The Trojans led 21-20, the Huskies’ demoralized defense could not stop the Trojans’ running game, and USC had the ball at the 45 yard line, with a chance to drive the dagger right into Washington’s cold, purple hearts. So on 2^nd and 5, Riley—naturally—throws a pass at the line of scrimmage for no gain. And on 3^rd and 5 he throws it again. And as happens so often when Riley takes the ball out of the hands of his running backs, puts in in Miller Moss’s hands, and asks Miller to win the game, disaster struck and what looked like a clear path to victory took a hard right into deep rough. 

This isn’t the first year when Lincoln Riley has inexplicably abandoned a successful running game. There were plenty of times last year when MarShawn Lloyd was averaging seven or eight yards a carry and Riley insisted on throwing it. The guy averaged 7.1 yards per carry on the season and would easily have rushed for 1,000 yards if he averaged more than 10 carries a game. (That’s not an exaggeration. Look it up. Ten carries per game.) 

It was frustrating to watch, and I noted the issue multiple times in Musings and in our WeAreSC videos. But USC fans could at least console themselves that Riley was abandoning the run to put the ball in the hands of the returning Heisman winner and possibly the most talented college quarterback I’ve ever seen. And they were scoring in bunches. USC was in the top five in almost every major offensive category last year.

But now we see that it wasn’t Caleb Williams’ talents that blinded Riley to the importance of a running game. He doesn’t just abandon the run if he has his usual high draft pick and future NFL starting quarterback. He doesn’t just abandon the run if he has a quarterback who is headed to New York for the Heisman ceremony, frustrating as that might be. No. We now know he also abandons the run even when he has a quarterback who will only go to New York if the kid uses his NIL money to buy a coach ticket. 

Lincoln Riley’s stubborn determination to put the game squarely on Miller Moss’s shoulders is, at this point, shocking. It’s coaching malpractice. And it has destroyed USC’s 2024 season. Moss looked like a Heisman candidate after the LSU game. Now, eight games later, with a lot more data, we know that Miller Moss is a below-average USC quarterback who simply can’t be trusted to protect the football when it matters most. 

He’s a nice kid, and he tries hard, and he’s taken a lot of hits, and his teammates really seem to like him. Blah, blah, blah. I don’t care. I’d judge a high school quarterback on those things. But college football is a high-level professional football league now. And professional quarterbacks aren’t judged on whether they’re nice. Professional quarterbacks are judged on whether their play leads to wins or losses. And Miller Moss is a .500 quarterback who routinely—routinely!—throws game-changing, back-breaking interceptions. He still makes a lot of nice throws every week. But when you throw the game away half the time, who cares?

Two weeks ago I catalogued Miller Moss’s four horrible, game-changing interceptions in the span of eight games. Now it’s five in ten games. 

And the latest was a doozy. Moss, with all day in the pocket—that was true almost the entire night—decided to chuck the ball right at a Washington linebacker. The linebacker didn’t do anything special. He was just standing there, right in the passing lane, the entire time. Ja’Kobi Lane was also standing around—in his case, right in front of Moss, 13 yards away, right at the sticks. He looked open enough to me. But I’m no quarterback, so what do I know? 

This, I know this: Kyron Hudson was not open. Not at all. And there was no reason for Miller Moss to believe he was. 

I don’t know much about Jayden Maiava; we hardly ever see him. He’s like that uncle who lives overseas that you see at Christmas every six years and hardly think about him in the meantime because of his absence. Maybe there’s a reason Maiava doesn’t play. Maybe he doesn’t practice hard. Maybe he sleeps through team meetings. Maybe he stole Lincoln Riley’s car keys for a joyride and crashed Lincoln’s hard-earned Lamborghini. I don’t know. But if I’m Jayden Maiava and I’m watching this nonsense, I’m incensed and probably have my portal paperwork all filled out. 

And most of us can’t help but wonder whether USC would have punched it in on 1^st and goal from the 4 at the end of last night’s game if the quarterback was a running threat like Maiava is.  Or if the quarterback and his head coach actually considered running the ball with the quarterback. I’m 50 and much fatter than I used to be or would like to be. I could have run the ball in on that 4^th and 1 play. Washington never once had to worry that Moss might keep it and they were therefore entirely focused on Woody Marks. They were locked in like Maverick on that MiG-28, because there was never any doubt that it was going to the halfback. It always does. 

But let’s give the quarterback guru the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that his expert eye really has figured out that Miller Moss is USC’s best option. If that’s true, then Riley has to change his offense. You cannot keep putting every game on your quarterback’s shoulders when he simply isn’t equipped to handle it. You may have coached under the Pirate. You may have put a bunch of gifted quarterbacks into the league. You may have a whole series of Heisman Trophies on your coaching resume. But if you don’t have Caleb Williams, Jalen Hurts, Kyler Murray, or Baker Mayfield on your roster, quit acting like you do, and… 

Run the $%@& ball! 

This isn’t Texas Tech and it’s not Madden on the PS5. It’s Tailback U, and you’re getting paid a million bucks a game to make good decisions and win. Instead, you’re running the program into the ground and threatening its long-term future by throwing away winnable games week after week thereby putting your recruiting class, fan support, and career at risk. 

USC doesn’t need an offensive genius right now. Even freakin’ Clay Helton would have figured out that he should be running the ball under these circumstances, and Son of an O Line Coach couldn’t score triple digits on an IQ test with Socrates sitting next to him feeding him the answers. Pull the most average high school football coach in America out of his woodshop class and stick him in Riley’s office and the guy would be smart enough to run the ball when his running backs are getting six yards a carry and his quarterback keeps throwing horrible interceptions.

Riley even knows it. In his head, he knows it. In post-game interviews, he knows it. Here he is talking about the importance of the running game after the loss last night:

“I’ve got to continue to stick with it [the running game] more. It’s obviously the way that you can control and win games. And we’ve got to, you know, we’ve got to be able to do it more consistently. We’ve had moments this year, but it’s got to be a four-quarter thing for us.”

He knows it. He can talk about it. He can tell himself that he’s going to do it. But when it really matters, when the play clock’s running and he has to signal in a play for his offense, he doesn’t know it at all. At the first sign of resistance—any two-yard run on first down, for example—Riley abandons the run. You can almost see the thought bubble above his head saying, “See! I told you running the ball doesn’t work!” You need to have patience with the run game to have a good run game. Riley’s patience with the running game is that of a hungry two-year-old who sees cookies on the kitchen counter. I want cookies now! I want to pass now!

Lincoln Riley: the Veruka Salt of the passing game. Give me that pass, now!

Strip everything else away. When it actually matters, Lincoln Riley is just another soft, Air Raid coach who does soft, Air Raid things. 

He’s not going anywhere. Nobody walks away from $90 million, and USC couldn’t afford to get rid of him even if Heritage Hall wanted to. But I can’t help but wonder what USC football would look like if the decisions were being made by some of the other coaches who seemed to be on USC’s short list before they hired Lincoln Riley, maybe a non-guru like Matt Campbell.  

Or, for that matter, D’Anton Lynn or Matt Entz, both of whom probably understand that football is primarily a game of tough men violently hitting other tough men harder and more consistently than the other guy can handle. Lincoln Riley doesn’t understand that. He’s a chalkboard coach, an X’s and O’s guy. He’s an artist; just give him a pen and paper, and see how pretty it looks! On paper, his offense excels. 

Also on paper—and not coincidentally—his team is currently 15^th in the Big 10, right behind UCLA, Michigan State, and Northwestern. 

Lincoln Riley, like all football coaches who are losing, likes to point out after losses that his team was just one play away from a win. After Minnesota, Riley said, “If you change two plays this year, then we’re 5-0.” I guess now he thinks if you change five plays this year, USC is 9-0.

But USC isn’t one play away each Saturday. It’s one tough football coach away. And while you can reasonably hope that next week you’ll get that one play, you can’t really hope that next week you’ll suddenly have a tough football coach who knows the value of running the football. 

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Let’s do a few positive comments, while I’m temporarily able to focus on something positive. 

The USC defense wasn’t great last night. But all things considered—the awful injury situation, the turnover-prone offense, playing on the road—it wasn’t a bad performance. The defense held Washington to six points in the second half and once again gave the offense a great opportunity to win. Not every coach on USC’s staff is earning his paycheck, but the new defensive staff is earning theirs. USC’s defense is now more reliable than its offense, which is a wild turn of events. Can you imagine what these games would look like with the old defensive staff? 

Sam Greene had solid high school tape. He was a little undersized, but he looked like a much better prospect than his three-star rating would suggest. And now we’re starting to see that he was. Greene is going to be a very good football player before he’s done here.

Josh Henson’s group is getting better. There are still too many costly breakdowns. You still have a right tackle who doesn’t seem to know that you can only move once the ball does, although to be fair that’s probably because the right tackle should be playing right guard and knows he doesn’t have the feet to be left alone with speedy edge rushers. But the absolute calamity that was USC’s offensive line earlier in the year has given way to a group that runs the ball well and has given Miller Moss plenty of time to throw over the last month. The failure to land an experienced tackle in the transfer portal is still hurting this team, and this group won’t make anybody forget those 1970’s offensive lines with Anthony Munoz, Bruce Matthews, and Brad Budde. But Henson has done a nice job turning a grease fire into a functional unit. Right now, I trust the offensive line more than any offensive position group other than the running backs. The big guys still have problems, but they’re at least headed in the right direction.

Makai Lemon is becoming the star of a talented but underachieving wide receiving corps. I still think all four of the sophomores have promising futures. Lane has flashed repeatedly. Branch seems to be coming around. And Duce is still 6’6” and freakishly fast; once he learns to play with the physicality and aggressiveness required of a big receiver, he’ll be a problem. But it’s the forgotten guy who has become consistently good first. 

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Okay, like Riley’s offense, the good mood passed. We’re done with that positivity thing. So let’s get out of here.

The bye week comes at just the right time. Not to save the season—that’s already lost. For the second year in a row, USC’s coaching failures have led to a disastrous season. 

No, the bye week comes at just the right time for my mental health. I liked Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day as much as the next guy. But I don’t love Lincoln Riley’s Groundhog Season much at all, and I need a break. I’m also too old and seen too much of the world to expect Lincoln Riley to change who he is. Young women often think they can change their boyfriends; just think about his potential! Middle-aged litigators know that people are who they are. In two weeks, Lincoln Riley will be the same football coach. USC will still be the same flawed team. 

USC can still win a lot of football games in future years with this defensive staff and an elite quarterback. And if I’m an elite quarterback from, I don’t know, say, Georgia or someplace like that, I’m watching these games and thinking USC is the perfect destination. I’d probably assume that I’d be better than the current starter from day one, and I know Lincoln Riley would give me the chance to showcase my arm talent. Any coach who lets Miller Moss throw the ball 29 times in a half against that Washington defense is going to let me chuck the ball all over the place like the Big 10 is some over-glorified 7-on-7 tournament. That could get me to New York. And the league!

For the rest of us, it’s just brutally disappointing. A better decisionmaker at the big desk would never have brought The Coach Who Stole Christmas the Playoffs to Whoville in the first place, and USC would likely be coming off back-to-back playoff appearances right now. A better decisionmaker wouldn’t have this USC team in the top five—the talent isn’t good enough for that—but he also wouldn’t have USC drowning under the weight of five losses either. 

USC football is a hobby. None of us pay the mortgage and feed the kids with USC football. But hobbies matter. Once, many years ago, I was talking to a woman who really loved going to some shop where you could make and paint your own pottery. That was her hobby, and a perfectly fine one it was. This was during the Paul Hackett years, and I told her that having USC football as a hobby at that time was like going to that shop, lovingly shaping your vase out of clay, painting it so beautifully, carefully handing it to the worker, and feeling so good about what you’ve done … merely to have the same guy walk into the shop every week right as you’re picking up your “art,” pull it out of your hands, and smash it on the tile floor. 

Well, Paul Hackett is no longer around to smash our pottery every week. Neither is Clay Helton. Neither is Alex Grinch. But we’re all still walking around on shards of shattered vase every Saturday. That never seems to change. 

Fight on. Or whatever it is we’re calling it these days.