Although the USC Trojans won Saturday against the Cal Bears, 50-49, it wasn’t pretty. At one point, the Bears had a double-digit lead only to see it go up in flames in a Trojans comeback.
While the comeback may be impressive to some, defensive issues still plague the Trojans leaving some to wonder if head coach Lincoln Riley is about to make any major changes.
If he is, he wasn’t telling anyone after their win Saturday.
“I’m just trying to beat Washington next week,” Riley said postgame. “Those are my thoughts on that. So that’s my job is to get this team ready that’s sitting 5-1 in the best conference in America to try to go win it. That’s where my focus is.”
The Trojans have struggled mightly on defense all season long, so it wouldn’t be a shock to see Riley make changes. But Riley also said the offense at times has put the defense in bad spots with mistakes.
“The reality is, do we need to, are there areas where we have to be better defensively? Of course, there is, alright? But the flip side of that is, you know, offensively, you can’t sit there and put them in bad positions,” he said. “You know, we can’t give up a couple of kickoffs, we put them in terrible field position or some three and outs. The turnover there at the end of the perfect example, like defense, they do their job, they get the offensive turnover, and then one frickin’ play, and they’re right back out there with terrible field position. That’s not bad defense, that’s bad offense. It’s bad team football.”
They played bad team football that almost cost them yet another game, but USC has a chance to redeem themselves against the Washington Huskies and end their PAC 12 and College Football Playoff hopes.
