Lincoln Riley claims USC is three or four plays away from being a 10-1 football team
Lincoln Riley and USC may be 7-4 on the season, but the Trojans leader believes his team could be 10-1 at the moment.
It hasn’t been smooth sailing for USC in Riley’s second season, but he’s keeping the vibes positive entering Week 12. Preparing for a showdown against UCLA, Riley elaborated on why he believes the Trojans’ season was close to being much more fruitful.
“I think you have to take whatever happens and make it your advantage. We’re probably three or four plays away from being a 10-1 football team right now,” Riley started. “Then would that mask, in some way, some of the areas that we still really have to grow and progress as a program? Maybe in some way it would. You want to say no, but deep down, if we’re sitting here 10-1, probably the attitude of everyone would probably feel a little bit different. That’s just the nature of this game. Having been through it a little bit, I try to stay pretty steady.
“I knew even after 11 wins last year and all the good stuff, I knew we still had a ways to go. There’s still steps that you’ve got to make. We’ve had a few of those that we didn’t win this year, we won last year but they were really, really close too, and could’ve gone either way. That’s part of it. I think especially here in the beginning, as we’re growing. I think the longer term vision is to be able to put out a group that has the opportunity to really separate in more games, and be more dominant, and be more kind of evenly, the strengths of the team more evenly distributed across the board. We’re going to get there. We’re absolutely going to get there.”
Regardless, Riley believes if you take a step back and look at the program from a far, you can really appreciate the journey he’s on with the Trojans.
“I mean, I think two years ago, if you’d have asked anybody involved with this program, ‘Hey, we’re going to go through two years. We’re going to be in championship-type games late in the season both years. We’re going to have one year where we’re right there on the doorstep of being in the College Football Playoff,’ from where this thing was, hell, everybody would’ve taken that. Everybody,” Riley said.
“We forget that now, but everybody would’ve taken it. And these guys have been so key to that. And as this thing goes and gets better and better and better, as these years go on, we can’t lose appreciation for these guys here in the beginning that helped push this thing along.”
Lincoln Riley and USC will look to finish the season strong, with wins to end their campaign. A victory over the Bruins would be paramount to that goal.