This season is officially worse than the last, USC completing its regular season with a 6-6 record and probably destined for a minor bowl in a desert wasteland.
Remember how an 8-5 season last year felt as if it was rock bottom?
Well, things have unraveled at USC to the point where the infamous Clay Helton era, in retrospect, is starting to look half-decent.
Following a 49-35 defeat to No. 5 Notre Dame at the Coliseum on Saturday, Lincoln Riley has a 25-14 record as USC’s coach. In the same role, Helton was 28-11 through his first 39 games.
USC had the ball within one touchdown of No. 5 Notre Dame, but back-to-back interceptions returned for touchdowns sealed the Trojans’ loss to the Irish.
Once viewed as a savior, Riley has imprisoned USC in a cycle of mediocrity. His shortcomings as have kept the Trojans from even dreaming of realizing their championship ambitions. His eight-figure annual salary pretty much guarantees he won’t be fired anytime soon.
A program that defines itself by championships risks becoming irrelevant when there’s an absence of hope, and USC is hopeless at the moment. If there’s a way out of his purgatory, no one can see it, the mounting defeats and shortage of high-end talent obscuring the path ahead.
“Finish 6-6 and just really have no clue what we are?” former USC quarterback Matt Leinart posted on social media. “Who we are? There’s no identity. We have good players. Need to recruit harder. As frustrated as anyone. Want to see USC back to being a contender. Don’t think we are close at the moment.”
Another former Trojans quarterback, Matt Barkley, was more succinct.
“This,” Barkley posted, “is not USC football.”
This is USC football now, and this could be USC football for a while. Riley certainly has called into question whether he has the comportment required to clean up his personal Chernobyl. This is the same thin-skinned coach who this year closed practice to the media, the same one who last year suspended a Southern California New Group reporter for alleged violations of the program’s media policy.
In the wake of the Notre Dame loss, Riley was asked why he was confident USC could live up to his mandate of competing for championships. Riley wouldn’t say.
“This game finished 20 minutes ago,” Riley said. “We’ve got time to go here. I know I get to answer all those. That’s part of being the head coach. I don’t shy away from it. But this is about this team and this moment, these guys that played their last game here at the Coliseum.
Lincoln Riley has struggled through his USC tenure, but pro football executives see a path for him to be an NFL head coach or offensive coordinator.
“I could sit up here for an hour and talk about the things I know are happening within this program. I could rattle off all the stats. I could show you the facilities. I could show you recruiting. I could show you the staff. I could go on about that for an hour, but I just don’t think it’s the appropriate time right now.”
Riley’s approach almost certainly didn’t result in a wave of fawning media coverage of USC’s seniors, and it definitely didn’t address the concerns of the tens of thousands of loyal fans who packed the Coliseum, so what did the coach accomplish other than spare himself an unpleasant but entirely necessary line of questioning?
While praising quarterback Jayden Maiava, Riley slipped in another reference to the difficulty of USC’s schedule, echoing an opinion he’s shared throughout the season about his team’s record being a reflection of his opposition.
The Trojans were never blown out this season, including Saturday. They were ahead 7-0; they tied the game at 14-14 and 21-21. Until Irish cornerback Christian Gray intercepted a pass by Maiava and returned it for a 99-yard touchdown with 3 minutes 39 seconds remaining in the game, the Trojans were down by only a touchdown — 35-28.
Their five other losses were by a combined 19 points.
The Trojans were in every game they played. Their inability to win these games, however, pointed to another, potentially more disconcerting, problem: their lack of playmakers.
Maiava threw some passes that, while difficult to catch, would have been hauled in by the likes of Jordan Addison, Drake London, Amon-Ra St. Brown or Michael Pittman Jr. The Trojans don’t have a player like that. One catch here, one catch there, and the Trojans might have won a few more games.
Is this a recruiting problem? Is this a player-development problem?
Either way, it’s a Lincoln Riley problem, which means it’s a USC problem.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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