Lincoln Riley details challenges of Cal's defense

Under head coach Justin Wilcox, California has been known for its strong defenses. For an offensive head coach like Lincoln Riley, this can pose a challenge, going strength against strength with an opponent. This Saturday, that’s the exact challenge that USC faces.

While speaking to the media, Lincoln Riley was asked what stood out about Cal’s defense. This allowed him to praise the Golden Bears in detail.

“They’re just really well coached,” Lincoln Riley said.

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He then compared Cal under Justin Wilcox to TCU under Gary Patterson. While Lincoln Riley was there, he played Patterson consistently. However, he doesn’t see them as schematically similar. Instead, they’re similar in how well they’re coached.

“I think about a TCU in the last 15 years where, you know, Coach [Gary] Patterson being the head coach there all the years we competed against him. It seems like the names and faces always change, but they were always so tremendous on defense and so well coached and knew their scheme inside and out. It’s not the same scheme as TCU, but it’s–you can just tell. Like, you could see obviously Justin’s influence on it, and no surprise with his reputation as a defensive coordinator and defensive mind,” Lincoln Riley said.

“They’ve got a really good defensive staff and these guys–you watch people week to week and like, you don’t play that many people that like they just do something that’s totally schematically differently than anybody else. You don’t see that very much anymore. But what you do see is the small, kind of intricate details of how people do things and what gives them trouble and how well do they know their system, and kind of where the strengths are and the weaknesses and how they cover up for the weaknesses and how they attack the strengths.”

Lincoln Riley continued to praise how well Cal is coached. He also pointed out that they’re always in position and don’t beat themselves. To beat them, you need to outplay them. You can’t wait for them to make a mistake.

“They don’t beat themselves. They’re in the right position. They know the adjustments. You just turn on the film and when people have a good play or scored a touchdown or had a good drive. More often than not, there was some really good offensive football or like some outstanding individual play. It’s not very much well the defense just busted this, or didn’t align to this, or didn’t handle this coverage well.”

We’ll find out if USC’s unstoppable force of an offense can beat Cal’s immovable object of a defense on Saturday when the Trojans host the Golden Bears at 10:30 PM EST.

“It’s less mistakes on their part and more being earned, which I think is the mark of a good defense. They make people earn it if they’re gonna get it, and that’s what stands out,” Lincoln Riley concluded.

Justin Wilcox praised the USC offense

In the inverse of Lincoln Riley praising the Cal defense, Justin Wilcox praised USC’s offense. In particular

“Limit the explosive plays, which is simple in concept but more difficult to do if you look at–there’s a reason, again, you go back, there’s a lot of people that are good football coaches and there’s good players in our conference and these guys they put up 43 or whatever it is a game,” Justin Wilcox said.

“But, to play good football, you’ve got to have your numbers right and you’ve got to limit the explosives and make some one-on-one tackles or one-on-one plays on the ball. Because, the style of offense that they employ, and a lot of folks do, is they create isolations and make you tackle. Then, in the pass game, they can protect it and if the quarterback can get out of trouble, you may have to cover longer. If you’re not quite able to get him on the ground within 2.7 seconds and that play goes three, four, five, six, seven seconds, then the secondary and the cover guys are gonna have to attach to people, and when the ball is thrown you got to make a play on it.”