USC Football: Lincoln Riley Defiant After Elimination From Pac-12 Championship Contention

The confidence never stops with him.

After your USC Trojans punched a one-way ticket to one of the most underwhelming seasons (relative to expectations) in recent college football history, Lincoln Riley had this to say, per Connor Morrissette of USCFootball.com:

"We're not that far off. We're not," Lincoln Riley says.

— Connor Morrissette (@C_Morrissette) November 12, 2023

Riley continues to remain optimistic about the program, suggesting that in spite of their obvious holes on both sides of the ball, he remarks that they're "not that far off."

It can be inferred that Riley's comment pertains to how "far off" they are from being true national championship contenders, as in his two years at USC, they've fallen short. Worse, they've regressed, obviously having reached the Pac-12 title game last season, while failing to even win 9 games this season. 

In terms of trying to find the rationale in his comments, USC did look better defensively at times throughout this game, as holding Oregon to 36 is actually fairly impressive given their scoring output in recent games. For example, they scored 33 against Washington, 35 against Utah, 42 twice, and 63 against Cal. 

They were also more efficient than Oregon on third-down, and frankly, given the incredibly quick turnaround from Alex Grinch being the defensive coordinator just last week, the team performed as well as they seemingly could've on paper. 

Offensively, USC put up 27 points and converted 6 of 12 third downs, all while putting up 6.3 yards per play against a Ducks defense that has held 4 teams to single-digit points (and one team to 10) this season. 

There's a long, long journey ahead for this USC program, as the transition off of Caleb Williams combined with the number of holes that have to be filled on both sides of the ball will lead to a prolonged period of uncertainty, and likely struggles. 

For now, however, it's important to focus on next week's home battle with UCLA, as a win there will defend home turf and improve the bowl game that USC will play in. 

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