USC’s loss to Oregon ended the team’s chances of reaching the College Football Playoff.
Coach Lincoln Riley has a poor record against top-ranked teams during his tenure at USC.
Pressure is mounting on Riley to deliver a championship-level season for the high-expectation program.
EUGENE, OR — Playing meaningful games late in the was something Lincoln Riley is used to.
But with every big game, he’s also become fairly used to the same result: losing them.
On a chilly afternoon in Eugene, Oregon, the Southern California football coach found himself in a familiar position.
In the game that was going to make-or-break USC’s season, the Trojans folded, committing mistakes and unable to keep up with No. 5 Oregon in a 42-27 loss that effectively ended any chance of reaching the College Football Playoff.
“We gave ourselves some pretty cool opportunities,” Riley said. “Just weren’t quite able to get over the hump there.”
The college football world has become infatuated with how success is determined. It was a pretty fluid bar, with no real definitive answer. Now, it’s measured by whether teams qualify for the playoff or not.
It’s not entirely fair to judge success off making the 12-team field, but blue blood programs that invest millions in coaches and players will have that mindset.
USC is in that group. It expects to be competing for national championships. The pressure to win has grown with the program more than 20 years removed from its last title. The Trojans have yet to make the playoff since the format was introduced in 2014.
“This is USC, and the standard here is incredibly high. It’s incredibly high in our locker room,” Riley said.
Riley added another Heisman Trophy winner to the school in Caleb Williams and has had winning record each season. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has life in it again and the administration has proved its willing fund what is needed to succeed.
But in the fourth year under Riley, the school is still waiting for that return on investment that brought him from Oklahoma.
The big games have been something Riley has yet to figure out, and frankly, will be the reason the Trojans will have doubts with him at the helm.
Riley is 34-17 at USC – coincidentally just one game better than his predecessor Clay Helton was at the same point. The record is especially poor when facing elite teams. Riley is 6-13 against ranked teams with an 0-5 record against teams in the top 10.
This season was the closest USC had gotten to being in the playoff since Riley’s first 2022, when in reached the Pac-12 title game, only to lose run over by Utah.
It felt like things were headed in the right direction with Williams returning for his junior season, but reality quickly smacked the Trojans back into place. They slumped to 8-5 and 7-6 records in the following year before putting themselves in position for a season-changing win Saturday.
Rather than getting a chance to play for a national championship, USC leave Eugene with a game against UCLA in its regular-season finale and likely will play in the Alamo Bowl.
It’s certainly worth pondering if Riley will be able to get the job done for the Trojans. He’s getting paid to produce more, and he has gotten a longer leash than Brian Kelly, Billy Napier and several other coaches hired after the 2021 season did before they were shown the door.
When asked about where he feels like his team is at in terms of reaching that next level, Riley pointed to the fact his team has “been right there” in the games it lost this season.
However, this is a results-based profession. There are no points for being close, especially at USC.
In Saturday’s loss, the theme followed something that has also followed Riley for much of his tenure: no matter how good the offense is, it doesn’t matter if the defense and special teams can’t play at the same level. USC lost on a last-second field goal to Illinois and couldn’t stop Notre Dame’s running game.
Against Oregon, USC threw for 330 yards against the nation’s top passing defense. It was the most the Ducks gave up this season. Despite that success, the Trojans never felt in control because their defense couldn’t slow down Oregon. The Ducks had 436 total yards and averaged 6.1 yards a play.
With another season failing to reach the high expectations, the pressure on Riley is only going to be turned up. He tried to stress the season isn’t over and there’s still much to play for, but just beating the Bruins for a ninth win isn’t just what the Trojan fan base wants.
Despite the criticism, Riley is still optimistic in the outlook of his program and wants to still stick with them.
“We’re just gonna get better and better as time goes on. We got a good team,” Riley said. “It’s just going to keep getting better and better.”
It ought to get better, because this familiar position USC finds itself in isn’t going to fly for much longer.