Lincoln Riley has to patch together USC’s linebacker room, and he’s not pretending it’s a one-man fix.
With Desman Stephens II serving a one-game suspension after his role in the Trojans’ 41-27 loss to Oregon, Riley said on his Sept. 28 appearance on Trojans Live that USC will lean on the depth it has already been building early in the season.
“Situations like this is where all the guys we played in those early weeks, this is where we need to start seeing dividends of that.
“We haven't played the same two linebackers, we've played all 11. So we need to feel the depth there.”
That’s the immediate challenge for USC as it turns toward Washington. Riley said the staff will rotate options and sort through combinations before settling on the group it believes gives the Trojans the best shot on Saturday.
“We'll work all the different guys, work some different combinations and settle in on what we feel like will give us the best chance on Saturday.”
Stephens was suspended after delivering a targeting hit with his shoulder on Oregon quarterback Dante Moore, who remained motionless briefly before being carted off on a stretcher. He was punished after celebrating the hit and has since apologized to Moore, Oregon and USC fans.
Riley also spent plenty of time revisiting the Oregon game, calling it a hard-fought matchup between two strong teams and praising the environment at the Coliseum.
“One, it was a great battle. Like I said, two really good teams going at it. Felt that way the entire way through the game.”
“It was a great atmosphere at the Coliseum too. Place was really popping.
It was a lot of fun to play and compete in. And our team battled, we battled like crazy.”
USC had momentum early in the fourth quarter, Riley said, but the game turned on a penalty.
“Obviously, we put ourselves right there in position in the fourth quarter. I don't know if we've had a point where we had as much momentum in the beginning of the fourth with that surge.
The crowd was going crazy and you can feel it. But the pivotal play was the penalty.”
“They missed the call. It was a tough call.
Tough time to happen there on third-and-15 because we had it. But we didn't do a good enough job with the combination of defensively affecting the passer and closing down on some of those lanes.”
Riley pointed to a handful of chances USC didn’t finish, including a near interception when quarterback Dylan Raiola entered the game.
“They made some really competitive plays. We had opportunities, especially when [quarterback Dylan] Raiola came in.
We had a chance to pick off one of his passes. [Cornerback] Jontez Williams slips as he's ready to go up for it.
It's probably an easy interception. But Raiola is more experienced than most backups.”
“Anytime a backup goes in, you can pick him off right off the bat. Those are the kind of opportunities we need to capitalize on.
This is a results driven business. We understand that there's no moral victories here.
I'm proud of the way we fought, but we have to play a little bit better. And we've got a lot of other big games coming up.”
Riley said he didn’t see USC lose control emotionally, even in a game that figured to be intense.
“I just didn't see a lot of plays where I felt like emotionally, we were out of control. I mean, I just felt that throughout the day.”
He also addressed the roughing-the-passer call on Jide Abasiri, saying it wasn’t a matter of emotion.
“[Defensive tackle] Jide Abasiri on the roughing the passer call, that's not an emotional play. It's a busted call.
We had a few other plays where we're slightly out of position. We just made some mistakes at inopportune times and had some opportunities to make some big plays.”
“We even had the ball in space a couple of times with a ton of grass around us. And we weren't able to make guys miss.
They made us miss a couple of times. We just made a few mistakes.”
“Yeah, it was going to be an emotional game. But going back and watching it, I didn't feel like we lost control of our emotions.
I thought we were fired up to play and played really hard. We didn't have a bunch of dead ball personal fouls and crap like that.
It's just that we've got to play better play and be cleaner in some of the situations.”
Riley said USC has the structure to handle weekly game planning, with analytics in the mix but not running the show.
“We have a plan each week going into games and then we have the data and analytics behind it.”
“I certainly have the awareness, and I'm given a number or figure or where that lies. The analytics are great, but they don't tell the story.”
“That's where you've got to combine your knowledge and feel for the game, then your strategy and matchup.”
The locker room, Riley said, was disappointed after coming up short in a game the Trojans believed they could win.
“Well, they were obviously disappointed in the locker room because they knew they put themselves in position to win it. And I felt like we certainly could have and believe we should have.”
“But you've got to turn the corner. That's the nature of this business. You have to be able to press reset and got to learn lessons from it.”
“And our guys did a good job of turning the page. All the focus now is on Washington.”
That opponent brings its own problems, starting with quarterback Demond Williams.
“Offensively, everything evolves around their quarterback [Demond Williams]. Tremendous player and phenomenal athlete and he's a proven guy.
He's tough to handle because he runs so well. He can really move, and coach [Jedd] Fisch has done a great job developing him.
“They're a little bit like us. They've had some injuries in the offensive skill positions.
But they've got some guys who are making really nice plays for them. They got some juice at wide receiver.
They've got nice size on the offensive line. Defensively they've done a nice job, several guys got drafted off that defense and they've been very good against the run.”
Riley said USC needs more from every level of its defense.
“We've got to complement the front better. But we need a little bit more from all of them.”
“There's opportunities where we want to be stickier in coverage. There's no question about it. You're trying to balance that with the front and how you want to attack them.”
“We're trying to balance that and find the right combination with our DBs to see how that fits. It needs to be more competitive and we've got to make them a little bit tougher. We need to be better at all three levels.”
He closed with a reminder that the noise around a program can be loud either way, but the film is what matters.
“At a place like SC, a place like Oklahoma where I was at before, the one constant is the noise. There's always noise. It's just what is the noise.”
“Like when you win, the noise is typically overpositive, overblown and not accurate. And after you lose, it's the same way.”
“But the truth is always in the middle. And the truth is on tape.
I think for us, Sunday is a great reset for us to get some perspective. ”
“You got to get back on the horse. You got to go address the things that you need to address.
You need to push and expand on the things you're doing well. And then you go get ready for the next one.”
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