Lincoln Riley blasts 'poor' officiating in USC's loss to Utah

No. 7 USC and No. 20 Utah battled in a great Pac-12 matchup between ranked teams on Saturday night, with the Utes escaping with a 43-42 victory. USC had opportunities to win the game, and head coach Lincoln Riley believes that his team should have. Riley blasted the game’s “poor” officiating in his postgame media availability, also noting that USC should have won regardless.

“You know, I feel two ways about it. The officiating was really poor tonight,” Riley said. “But we still should’ve won the game. That’s part of road football and that’s part of football in general. You’re gonna have some nights where the calls don’t go your way. They certainly did not tonight, but you still find a way. I thought we continued to keep our composure and fight, and we still should’ve won the game.

“I’m not gonna be the guy up here saying we lost the game because of officiating because we didn’t. We’re not gonna be excuse makers here. It was just another thing that we had to overcome tonight. We were close to getting it done, but just not quite enough.”

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Riley breaks down the officiating in USC’s loss

Several times late in the game, Riley felt like USC was on the wrong end of many questionable calls. Instead of getting stops on defense, the officials ruled the play a first down. USC was also flagged 12 times for 93 yards in the game, compared to five flags for 42 yards from Utah.

Riley made it very clear that USC isn’t an excuse making program, but he also explained that he felt the Trojans were on the wrong end of multiple calls. In the end, it was the Utes that walked away with the victory, handing the Trojans their first loss of the Lincoln Riley era.

“There were several third downs, some of the key ones that we felt like we had stops,” said Riley. “One of them was an interception. So yeah, again, does it make the job harder? Sure it does. I mean you’d love to get every call every time. That’s not football. We get that just like sometimes we’re gonna mess up, they’re gonna mess up too. We’ve got to be able to overcome it.

“At the end of the day, there’s gonna be a bottom line and there’s not gonna be excuses about the way we played. We’re a no excuse program. Wish we wouldn’t have had to overcome it, but it is what it is. It’s still out there to go get. We were one inch away on a lot of different occasions from winning this game and honestly several times from running away from it in this game. So we’re not gonna use it as an excuse. We’ve got to get better. We can’t control the officiating.”

USC now sits at 6-1 on the season and 4-1 against Pac-12 opponents. Having a loss is a tough blow for USC’s chances at the College Football Playoff, though the Trojans are still a contender depending on how the rest of the season shakes out.

USC is ranked No. 12 in the latest AP Top 25 poll heading into its bye week.