Does Lincoln Riley still "have it?"
Lincoln Riley's plan for building USC into a national contender might be better than it's looked.
The other week I singled out USC as a potential dark horse contender. There’s been a few times I thought the Trojans might have this figured out under Lincoln Riley only for it all to go up in smoke for various reasons.
Last year the Trojans were better on defense at last, although still not good enough, but took a bit of a step back on offense where they lacked explosiveness.
The two main backs for USC last year were Jo’quavious Marks and Quinten Joyner, who combined to turn 263 carries into 1,611 yards at 6.1 ypc with 12 touchdowns. Ostensibly quite good, but a mirage.
The passing game under Miller Moss attempted 362 passes for 2,555 yards at 7.1 ypa with 18 touchdowns and nine interceptions. When Jayden Maiava stepped in his numbers were very similar, 169 attempts for 1,201 yards at (also) 7.1 ypa with 11 touchdowns to six interceptions.
Overall decent efficiency but nothing explosive. The Trojans even finished 23rd in red zone touchdown rate at 70.9%. The issues were in the lack of explosiveness in the passing game, which opponents were not afraid to gang up on.
Defensively, the Trojans gave up 24.1 ppg and were 33rd in defensive FEI.
While they played at least “pretty well” most every week, USC was 4-5 in one-score games with narrow losses like:
27-24 at Michigan
24-17 at Minnesota
33-30 vs Penn State
29-28 at Maryland
26-21 at Washington
To get where they want to be, USC needs to blow teams like these away and not let them get deep into the fourth quarter with a chance to win. Can they get there? I think maybe they can.
Let’s dive into some of the Trojans’ tactics which have only seen them hovering around the average Big 10 team.