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USC’s season started in a promising style earlier than the Trojans fully imploded to finish the common season. Second-year head coach Lincoln Riley thinks he is aware of the place the whole lot unraveled.
After a 6-0 begin that had USC desirous about a possible spot within the School Soccer Playoff, the Trojans obtained blown out at rival Notre Dame, then misplaced to Utah, barely beat Cal, after which misplaced three in a row to finish the common season at 7-5. Few individuals noticed their season spiraling uncontrolled so badly. Riley actually didn’t.
The Trojans coach spoke with The Athletic’s Antonio Morales for a narrative printed on Wednesday that explored USC’s unraveling.
Morales requested Riley all of the robust questions, and Riley answered with a variety of typical coach solutions. However Riley took accountability for the season going poorly, acknowledged his group’s defensive shortcomings, and stated the group by no means clicked within the second half.
The second Riley pinpointed as being the place the whole lot went sideways was the loss to Washington. The Trojans had been 7-2 at that time and coming off a win over Cal, however they misplaced at dwelling 52-42 to the Huskies. That defeat apparently induced the underside to fall out for USC.
“I believe the Washington recreation particularly, once we didn’t win that recreation ultimately, particularly within the style it occurred, and among the issues had been off the desk, I didn’t suppose we dealt with that properly after that,” Riley stated.
You can see simply how devastating that loss was primarily based on how Caleb Williams reacted to the defeat. USC adopted that loss by dropping at Oregon after which at dwelling to rival UCLA.
One different attention-grabbing remark from Riley is that he’s now saying USC was fortunate to go 11-3 final season and the Trojans actually weren’t that good. He believes final 12 months’s fortunate season set the expectations increased for this season than they need to have been for USC.
“I believe truthful to say 12 months 1 we overachieved with what we had. Actually truthful to say 12 months 2 we didn’t attain our potential. I believe there’s nonetheless holes. I believe the schedule in hindsight — you would like would’ve possibly lined up a bit of higher. It was a tricky schedule to start with, however on high of it, the way in which it unfolded with 9 straight was difficult,” Riley stated.
Are you shopping for Riley’s rationalization?
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