A USC football team that was once 6-0 and believing it would be in the hunt for a Pac-12 championship and the College Football Playoff race lost its fifth game in the last six weeks on Saturday, 38-20 to rival UCLA.
It was arguably the Trojans' most uninspiring performance in a season full of them, and coach Lincoln Riley addressed that reality afterward.
"Just extremely disappointing to finish this way with obviously how well we started the season, I know our guys are disappointed, coaches are disappointed, I'm disappointed, I know our fans are disappointed, and they should be. There's no excuses," Riley said. "It's below what we expect here. It's below the standard. I've got to do a much better job. I own all of that, and I'm going to fight my ass off in every single way to make sure this thing gets to where it's supposed to be."
Riley was asked if the team had been worn down by the emotional toll of the mounting losses, or there were problems within the team culture, if he needed to make more major changes within the program, etc.
"We've got to continue to do a better job of growing in every area. We knew this was going to be a climb. We knew that was what we signed up for, like I told you guys, and we've got to keep climbing," he said. "Everybody wants the clean, smooth road to the top, and that's for the movies, man. The road to the top is jagged and it's going to take its different twists and turns, especially coming from where this was, but we've got to stay together as a program, we've got to stay together as a fan base, we've got to stay together as a university. Like this is the tough times that you push through for the great things on the other side of it."
Watch the full postgame press conference here and scroll down for a complete transcript of Riley's comments.
**Join the postgame discussion on our Trojan Talk board**
Opening comments ...
"Very disappointing. I mean, no other way to put it. I told the guys in the locker room I've clearly not done a good enough job here in the second half of the season getting this team ready to go. Didn't do a good enough job today getting our offense ready to go. Another game very similar to Notre Dame -- missed opportunities, obviously a ton of turnovers offensively, the turnovers and the fourth down stops, turnover for a touchdown. Defensively, we did some really good things, especially with being put in just horrible field position by all the turnovers just all day, but didn't get off the field quite enough on third downs. And that's the name of the game. We just didn't play good enough in any way and felt like there was some opportunities being here at home where we had a chance to grab some momentum and really get going there. A couple stops, obviously the deal right before halftime, and we just flat out didn't play good enough. Just extremely disappointing to finish this way with obviously how well we started the season, I know our guys are disappointed, coaches are disappointed, I'm disappointed, I know our fans are disappointed, and they should be. There's no excuses. It's below what we expect here. It's below the standard. I've got to do a much better job. I own all of that, and I'm going to fight my ass off in every single way to make sure this thing gets to where it's supposed to be.
"If we keep having guys in our program like these two guys sitting next to me (Shane Lee and Justin Dedich) then we'll have one great shot as times goes on. Appreciative for these guys and a lot of the guys in the locker room, lot of guys have laid it on the line. There's been a lot of great things happen here in the first couple years, and there's a long ways to go with this, but I am very appreciative. It's certainly a very tough moment because, more than anything, I wanted these guys to go out with the win here on senior day.
"So, that's where we're at. Obviously, the team will take a little bit of time now. It's been a long nine-game stretch, we'll take a little bit of time, get these guys back in the weight room a little bit, get them home for Thanksgiving, get a chance to reset, find out where the next game is and then obviously start working on the future in terms of the next game and beyond."
What did you make of the run game, did you want it to be more balanced?
"They're good. It's the best D-line that we've played this year, which we kind of thought that coming in. They're a good group. No, we didn't play very good in the run game. We didn't. We tried there, we just weren't getting a whole lot of momentum with it. We got kind of rolling there in the passing game really through the first half -- I think we had almost 300 yards passing at half -- so we were making some big plays and starting to move the ball there. But yeah, the run defense and our inability to run the ball was a big part of it because then those good pass rushers were able to start teeing off. And obviously not the situation that you want to be in. We knew coming in we were going to need to run it well and we were going to need to be pretty good in the short passing game, kind of quick passing game to be able to get the ball out of the quarterback's hands. We did OK in the short passing game, but the run game certainly wasn't good enough."
Where do you feel like you personally could have done more over the last six games?
"Everything. I don't know if it's more. I don't know that I could put more minutes into it than what I do, but it's performance-based at the end of the day. I look back and say, we have fighters in there, we've had a tough stretch. I think you look back on it and some of the close games, not being able to win and capitalize on those, I think we'll look back and really that was kind of the key stretch of the season. And the season probably came down to four or five plays that we didn't make, and we've got to find a way to make those. And we had two games like this one today where really just turnovers or really just didn't even give ourselves a chance to win by the way that we played, and that's unacceptable. You may lose a close one here or there, where it's just right there one play here or there, but to not give yourself a chance like today, it's unacceptable. So I've got to be better. I mean, there's no way to look at this and say I did any kind of a good job and we got the result that we did in the second half of the season. I've got to be better in every single way possible."
Was there an emotional toll on this team from this final stretch that affected the play on the field?
"Were we a little worn down now? Yeah. We've played nine barn-burners in a row. Every single of the last nine have been close. Now, obviously had we played better in some of them they wouldn't have all been close. But yeah, do I think we were a little bit worn down emotionally -- some of the close losses, nine straight heavy games, probably the toughest nine-game stretch that any college football team played anywhere? Yeah, I think I'd look back on it and say yes, but the reality is you play better and you coach better then you're not in that many. You go make on of those plays in several of the games we played against top teams this year, you make one more or those plays and win, and all of a sudden the momentum that comes along with that, just everything feels a little bit different when you do. We didn't do it, we didn't do it today. It's incredibly disappointing, but it's also, I told them in there, it's also incredibly motivating because I want to, for a lot of reasons, and again, some of these guys up here, Shane, Dedich and several more in the locker room that helped get this thing started here and didn't have to -- he didn't have to come back, he didn't have to come back, he didn't have to transfer here -- like, as time goes on I want to validate what they did. And we're going to. And we are going to be great. It sucks right now, it hurts right now, but I've never been more motivated and had more of a fire in my belly than I do right now."
Do you feel major changes are needed to the program, culture, etc.?
"We've already made one pretty big change, so you go back and look at everything, and you do it whether you're 7-5 or whether you're 10-2, you do that all the time. That's a constant here. The reality is there's going to be things to fix. Like I've said a few times, you go change three plays this year, we probably won three more games. And had we made those plays, there were still the issues that were there that had to improve were still going to be there. So we've got to continue to do a better job of growing in every area. We knew this was going to be a climb. We knew that was what we signed up for, like I told you guys, and we've got to keep climbing. Everybody wants the clean, smooth road to the top, and that's for the movies, man. The road to the top is jagged and it's going to take its different twists and turns, especially coming from where this was, but we've got to stay together as a program, we've got to stay together as a fan base, we've got to stay together as a university. Like this is the tough times that you push through for the great things on the other side of it. Most people, if you're willing to push through it, you get to those opportunities. And ours are coming."
How would you sum up this season?
"I don't know that I want to sum it up. We've got one more game left with these guys. I'm disappointed in today, we'll sum it up when it's all over."
We've talked a lot the last two years about building culture. Did you feel anything was lost or missing in that regard down the stretch?
"It would be interesting to go back and take stock of that. You know, we got in a bunch of heavy games -- there's points where I would say the fight of this team, the resilience of this team, coming back in a lot of the games and giving us a chance to win, we won a couple of them, we didn't win a couple of them. So I would look at some of that and say there was definitely growth, but certainly not winning some of those close games, playing a game like we did today, I'd say there's still obviously clearly a lot of work to be done."
You've expressed your preference not to have a full-time special teams coordinator, how do you fix the special teams otherwise?
"Well, we've improved there this year. We've got, I think the No. 1 punt return team in the country. Eddie's done a nice job for us all year. We missed a couple of kicks today, which obviously were the one kick out of bounds, we missed the field goal, so those were obviously some big plays against us. But yeah, I evaluate everything at the end of the year. We've made some improvements. I'm not saying it's been perfect, but that will be part of the evaluation just like every other part of the program."
If this is Caleb's last game for USC, what would you say he's meant to the program?
"He's done a lot, like a lot of these guys have here. He came here and took a chance on this place and took a chance on being a part of restarting this program and getting it going, and he's obviously been a good player for us, a really good leader for us. Like a lot of guys have in that locker room, so he's a special player, special competitor and obviously we'll see where it goes from here."
