For Lincoln Riley, USC’s loss to Penn State is just the latest disappointment in a string of them: ‘It always falls on me’

LOS ANGELES — The joyful roars from the adjacent Penn State locker room boomed through the LA Coliseum’s thin walls on Saturday evening as a throng of reporters waited for USC coach Lincoln Riley to address another painful loss.

“We own LA!” shouted one of the victorious Nittany Lions.

“LA is our city!” a Penn State teammate howled in response.

When Riley came to the podium a few minutes later, he made little effort to hide his frustration over what he described as a “really difficult loss.” USC fell to the nation’s fourth-ranked team 33-30 in overtime despite building a two-touchdown halftime lead, opening a seven-point fourth-quarter lead and driving into Penn State territory with a chance to win the game in the final minutes of regulation.

The most recent second-half collapse stung all the more for USC because it marked the Trojans’ third one-score loss of the season. They previously suffered two excruciating Big Ten road setbacks, surrendering a go-ahead last-minute touchdown at Michigan on Sept. 21 and squandering a late seven-point lead at Minnesota two weeks later.

“The reality is we’ve played the toughest schedule in the country the first six games and we’ve had a chance to win every single game,” Riley said. “That’s hard to do. To put yourself in the position to win these games is friggin’ hard to do.

“I understand that good is not going to be seen by the outside world right now because they’re going to focus on our record and the fact that we’ve lost three games on the last play. I understand it. That’s part of it. We all knew this when we signed up for big-boy football. We’ve got to do a better job at the end of games. I have to do a better job, our coaches, our players. Because we’re doing too many good things to put ourselves in situations where we have the lead and we can win.”

There’s no denying that USC is a few clutch plays or timely stops from where it wants to be, but that doesn’t alter the harsh reality facing the Trojans. At 3-3 overall, they’re no longer a realistic contender to make the College Football Playoff. They could win out and very likely not even sniff the 12-team field.

Worse yet, there’s little reason to believe that USC can get on that kind of second-half roll. This is a program that has lost all the momentum it had when Riley came aboard. USC has lost eight of its past 13 games in the past calendar year. That equals the worst 13-game stretch that Clay Helton ever produced.

Those struggles have sapped much of the enthusiasm that accompanied Riley’s arrival three years ago. Saturday’s crowd of 75,250 offered a tepid response each time the Coliseum’s in-house DJ demanded, “Come on, you’ve got to get loud!” There were so many pockets of Penn State blue and white in the crowd that several times the Nittany Lions’ bench gestured for more noise.

When asked how much responsibility he takes for the state of the program, Riley bristled at the question.

“It always falls to me,” he said.” When have I ever shied from the responsibility? I always take it. I’m the head coach. It’s all my job. Believe me, there’s nobody taking more responsibility than I am, so I don’t know where that line of questioning comes from.”

Ever since 2010, when Pete Carrol bolted to the NFL amid an NCAA investigation, USC has searched in vain for a capable replacement. Lane Kiffin was famously fired on the LAX tarmac after a poor start to his fourth season. Steve Sarkisian didn’t even last two years as a result of personal problems. Interim coach Ed Orgeron charmed USC players and alumni but didn’t get a vote of confidence from the administration. Then, with USC short on cash and desperate for stability, Clay Helton kept the job for seven largely forgettable years.

When he fired Helton two games into a humiliating eight-loss 2021 season, then-USC athletic director Mike Bohn vowed to find a successor capable of “winning national championships and restoring USC football to glory.” Enter Riley, seemingly the antidote to USC’s long, incestuous history of hiring head coaches with only Trojan ties.

Riley grew up in Muleshoe, Texas, a tiny speck of a town just 22 miles from the New Mexico border. He succeeded Bob Stoops at Oklahoma in 2017 and over the next five seasons produced a 55-10 record, four Big 12 championships, three College Football Playoff berths and two Heisman Trophy winners.

On a raucous late-November night in 2022, Riley seemed to have USC on its way to recapturing its glittering past. The Trojans outclassed Notre Dame to improve to 11-1 in Riley’s debut season. Caleb Williams dazzled a sold-out, star-studded Coliseum crowd with every downfield dart he delivered and every certain sack he escaped. USC needed only one more victory to clinch its first-ever berth in the College Football Playoff.

Then came Utah 47, USC 24.

And Tulane 46, USC 45.

And months of scrutiny surrounding Riley’s unwillingness to move on from embattled defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.

It’s never easy to fire a close friend, but Riley’s stubborn loyalty to Grinch caused him to lose the trust of many USC fans. He didn’t part ways with Grinch until last November after USC had fallen to 119th out of the 130 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision in yards allowed and 121st in points allowed.

This year’s defense has been respectable under new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, but Riley’s offense has slipped in the absence of former Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams. Heir apparent Miller Moss has thrown five interceptions in his past four games, his performance hampered by USC’s inability to block opposing edge rushers.

Riley demonstrated why he’s known as an offensive mastermind in the first half against Penn State on Saturday when he drew up play after play exploiting USC’s superior skill-position speed without exposing its pass protection issues. The most memorable was a clever first-quarter fake reverse that fooled half Penn State’s defense, enabling freshman Quinten Joyner to go 75 yards all but untouched.

Penn State rallied in the second half behind tight end Tyler Warren’s school record-breaking 17-catch, 224-yard night. Time after time, Penn State moved Warren around, lining him up in the backfield, at tight end or split out wide. Time after time, USC’s secondary lost track of him. Early in the third quarter, Warren even snapped the ball, ran downfield almost undetected and caught a 32-yard touchdown pass.

“We knew he was going to be a challenge coming in,” Riley said. “We had a couple coverage busts and I think that’s the thing we’ll look back on. When you play a really good player like that, you just want to make him earn it.”

What Riley will also look back on were a pair of fourth-quarter fourth-and-longs that Penn State was able to convert. Those “crazy plays,” as Riley called them, set up a 14-yard game-tying touchdown pass from Drew Allar to running back Nicholas Singleton.

USC advanced into Penn State territory on its final drive of regulation, Riley bleeding the clock to set up a third-and-6 from the 45-yard line with 14 seconds remaining. Riley said he felt good about his kicker’s leg if USC had converted. Moss instead overthrew an untimely interception.

Overtime roulette ensued, and luck yet again wasn’t on USC’s side. Penn State fans behind the end zone celebrated when Michael Lantz pushed a 45-yard field goal wide left. Then it was the Nittany Lions bench that spilled onto the field with joy after their kicker, Ryan Barker, hit the game winner from 36 yards.

Moss called the loss “excruciating,” but also struck a hopeful tone when noting how close it was.

“That’s the No. 4 team in the country,” he said. “What does that make us?”

When Riley was asked after the game if there was a single moment that he’ll dwell on from the Penn State comeback, he offered a window into how hard he has taken USC’s recent struggles. He said he didn’t see his kids for four nights this week because he was working such long hours to prepare for the Penn State game.

“I think about this every second,” he said. “When I go to sleep, I dream about it. And I wake up thinking about it. So I’ll think about all of it.

“It’s just a really difficult loss. There’s really no way to sugarcoat that.”