Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams on USC's 43-41 win over Arizona

Here’s what USC head coach Lincoln Riley, quarterback Caleb Williams and rush end Jamil Muhammad said after the game about the Trojans’ 43-41, triple-overtime win against the Arizona Wildcats.

USC Head Coach Lincoln Riley

Opening Statement:

“What a college football game. I give Arizona a lot of credit. I’m not going to make a lot of excuses in any way. They played well, played a lot better than us, certainly, at some times in the game. I mean, anytime you go down 17-0, you’ve got a mountain to climb, and we certainly had a lot of moments where we didn’t play very well in the beginning of the game. But our team’s fight and resolve to get back and find a way to win that, with some of the craziness that happened in this game, I’m really proud. A lot of teams don’t win this game. You go down 17-0 and you don’t recover. You have kind of the sequence there at the end of the game and you don’t refocus back up and get the job done and win it in overtime. And we had multiple opportunities where I think if our culture wasn’t strong enough, then I think we would have folded and we’d be sitting in here without a smile on our face right now. So it feels good to be 6-0. A lot to correct. A lot of new battles getting ready to come up, and I’m proud of this team for finding a way to win this.”

Riley on the two-point conversion play call in triple overtime:

“We’ve been working it. I’m glad we had the confidence to get it done. It was something that gave Caleb a chance to run it or throw it. Guys executed it in the end, and that’s what you practice for those moments. Throughout the offseason we’ve really spent a lot of time on situational ball. To stop a couple of their 2-point plays — that was the game there in the end. Again, I’m proud of our guys for getting it done.”

Riley on the plan for the series at the end of regulation:

“We were getting ready to run it. We just obviously had a missed exchange. It was close there whether you go ahead and score. We had conversations about if we should just take a knee because you could tell that they were getting ready to maybe let us score. The clock was so low though, that it is a unique conversation on if you kick the field goal, because something can happen like what did happen, or should you go and try to score. Those are conversations that we were having. Obviously, it was unfortunate that we mishandled that exchange there. That didn’t go to plan, but I had that timeout. So it wasn’t ideal, but we weren’t really concerned because we knew we could use the timeout.”

Riley on the reason for USC’s slow start:

“There wasn’t anything very good. We didn’t coach very good. We didn’t execute very good. We had some opportunities that we missed out on. Offensively and defensively we really just kind of took turns across the board. Give them (Arizona) credit, they executed at a high level on both sides. The play that really turned the game in a lot of ways was (Jacobe) Covington’s interception. I think we just had the fumble, and that momentum flipped back like that. Our defense, I thought, really stiffened up there in the second quarter. That’s what allowed us to get back in it. That energized our entire team and our sideline. Obviously, you don’t want to put yourself in that hole, but when you’re in it, man, you can either just feel sorry for yourself or you can take yourself out. And we dug.”

On game-planning for Arizona’s offense, and the performance of QB Noah Fifita:

“We didn’t know which quarterback was going to play, so we prepared for both. I thought he played about like he did against Washington last week — pretty good. He’s got some poise. He’s got some playmakers. I thought he threw it to us a couple of times and they just went up and made a couple of tremendous individual plays. The kid’s got some poise and some moxie. He’s an impressive player for a young guy.”

Riley on his assessment of the USC defense:

“I thought we took some great steps. Again, when you go down 17-0, you get tested right there internally. Do you really believe? Are guys ready to really fight? As Jamil (Muhammad) said and I’ve said before, your culture gets tested quick, and the defense is what got us going. Defense is what won this football game. It got us going in the beginning down 17-0 and closed it against a play that they’ve been running well all night. Closed it with a huge TFL to win the game, so I’m proud of those guys. We’re gonna get better. Missed a lot of pieces tonight. Even as the game went on, guys got in there and responded. So we’ll keep growing and I’m proud of their fight tonight.”

Caleb Williams adds:

“We wouldn’t have won that game without defense. We were down 17-0. So this whole defensive thing, our brothers, the score wouldn’t be 43-41 without them. So put it simply that way.”

Riley on USC’s offensive identity:

“I think it might be the No. 1 offense in the country right now. My expectations are higher than anybody’s. I want to score every freakin’ time we have the ball. In reality, that’s not gonna happen. And you can either panic or you can get back on it. We didn’t play our best tonight by any stretch, but one game to another, I wouldn’t count us out just yet.”

USC Quarterback Caleb Williams

Williams on his mentality through the back-and-forth game:

“It felt like playing quarterback for the USC Trojans. Every game that we play, everybody circles this game. So it felt like any other game, we knew that throughout this game they were going to try and test us and our patience, so coach and I talked about that, whether it was throughout the game, before the game, or throughout the week. That’s all I did was trust that and be patient and understand that they came out aggressive. They did a great job in the beginning, they did a great job throughout the whole game trying to get in my head and hitting me after the whistles or when the ball is away from me and things like that. Mental toughness, keep fighting, keep believing. That’s what you do as a leader, that’s what you do as a quarterback for the team is keep fighting.”

Williams on if there was anything that prompted him to start running more:

“Well, they kept running upfield. The D-ends kept running upfield when we would get in passing situations and things like that. Lanes kept opening up, they kept dropping out and they left me with big lanes. I know I haven’t run this year much and I don’t really like to run to be honest with you. But you got to do whatever you got to do to win the game. It doesn’t matter whether it’s me running or whether it’s me passing from 400, whether it’s me running for 200 and handing the ball off or having good play fakes. Just doing my job. Whatever it takes to win the game. That’s all that really matters at the end of the day.”

Williams on rebounding from USC’s slow start to the game:

“We didn’t come out playing the best ball that USC will play and should play and like I said is gonna play. So, we came out slow and that’s something that happens because, like I said, everybody circles this game. We are the University of Southern California Trojans, and like I said, everybody circles this game. You know you come out slow and you give a team like that some energy, some juice, they get going and you go down quick. The first quarter I think it was 17-0, so it was just a tough-fought game. We just kept fighting which shows the resiliency of this team, and like I said, the longer we go, the better we get.”

USC Rush End Jamil Muhammad

Muhammad on the final defensive play:

“We were just playing the card that we got to the best of our ability. The emphasis this week was training and effort and playing as hard as we can play. I believe, like Caleb said, the longer we go the better we get. I think that last play was really the epitome of that. Like Coach Riley said, any other team with less of a culture wouldn’t have shown up like that. I believe that we came together as a brotherhood and did what we had to do and just gave great effort.”