Lincoln Riley emphatically challenges public criticism of USC’s defense
With tension rising, Riley delivers a two-minute long sermon following a question about the public perception of the Trojans’ defense
Luca Evans (OC Register) — LOS ANGELES — The kettle has been boiling for two weeks now, small hints bubbling that these USC Trojans are not only well aware of public criticism of their polarizing defensive unit – and the man leading it – but a bit ticked off by it.
You had safety Bryson Shaw, after the Colorado game, vehemently defending defensive coordinator Alex Grinch. You had quarterback Caleb Williams, as head coach Lincoln Riley was asked Saturday about his trust in Grinch, shaking his head and smirking slightly in disdain at the question. And you had Williams, after Saturday’s 43-41 barnburner over Arizona, lean into the postgame mic to follow up a defensive question to Riley and say “we wouldn’t have won that game without defense.”
“This, this whole,” Williams said then, sighing for a moment, “defense thing.”
This whole defense thing, indeed, is peanut gallery fodder week after week, the public seeing ugly results (back-to-back 40-point games surrendered! 109th out of 130 FBS teams in yards allowed per game!) and teeing off not-so-hot-takes on this USC unit. After exiting last year on the hot seat, comments calling for Grinch’s job have reached a fervor. Some of the public’s ire has started to turn on Riley for his continued support of Grinch.
On Tuesday, when asked if he felt there were defensive improvements that people weren’t quite understanding, Riley turned the ire right back, the most impassioned he’s been in front of reporters all season.
“Oh, there’s, how long do you got?” he said, making the point that if USC hadn’t missed an end-of-regulation kick to put Arizona away, the game’s narrative would have revolved around the defense’s second-half strides.
“Here’s the deal, everybody in the media had their mind made up – I won’t generalize, a lot of people in the media had their mind made up, that the first second there was any adversity this year it was, like,” Riley said, widening his eyes and throwing his hands in the air, “‘Oh my God, they should have done this, and they should have made this change,’ and blah blah blah.”
“And it’s not true … that’s going to be continued to be written throughout the entire year, but there’s a lot of great things happening here,” Riley continued, “and we’ll own the things we need to get better, but people need to make sure they’re seeing the other side of it as well. And that’s what we’ve been trying to say for a long time, and I think both myself and Caleb and some other players were venting a little bit of frustration with that, to be completely honest.”
“Y’all didn’t think y’all were getting all that,” Riley eventually finished, to laughs.
Indeed, probably not. But Riley’s comments Tuesday – accompanied by a great deal more vocal heft and hand-waving – were a direct continuation of comments last week, when he disagreed with an assessment that defensive issues looked the same as last season. Not “to the trained eye,” he said then.
The question, rapidly, has become what is Riley seeing in this defense that the layman doesn’t. What is Grinch seeing, to keep expressing the same percentage-tilted-positive optimism of the defense’s play. And in truth, the positives are aplenty – a much-improved defensive front, fearsome sack numbers and enough timely plays made to seal victories over Arizona State, Colorado and Arizona.
“I mean, this is a unit that, I think, when you talk about the top-end potential, has a chance to really grow and get better fast … there are a lot of good things happening on this defense, man,” said Riley, whose 10th-ranked team is 6-0 overall and 4-0 in Pac-12 play.
There are a lot of things, too, though, that simply don’t measure as results. Failing to stop Colorado’s passing game in that second half. Folding to Arizona’s offense in the first 20 minutes, as Grinch mentioned the defense’s lack of execution in clogging up yardage to start. Making only marginal improvements from last year in points allowed per game (27 to 29.2).
And that’s before the Trojans face Notre Dame, Washington, and Oregon.
“I can promise you, inside these walls, there is no expectation other than to play high-level in the second half of this year,” Riley said.
His stance Tuesday, rooted in a clear belief in Grinch and his players, was a gamble of sorts: a gamble on that improvement, that this stone-castle public defense against a pitchforked mob will hold true come December.
ocregister.com
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I have been told (a couple hundred times ) I am OLD simple kind of guy (I am in my seventies ) . Want a simple solution to all this criticism going on EVERYWHERE of USC ??? ………. Beat ND and LOOK GOOD doing it !!!!!!!!!! …..FIGHT ON !!!!!
But better approach to my point ? USC beat writers and USC Fans can’t do what I am suggesting …..It is up to the USC players and coaches to GET IT DONE……… And AIN’T it time they started playing at that level ? <<<<<Just saying …..Fight On !!!!!
Everybody is Dumping on the Trojans! The Athletic (question) — Which team would win on a neutral field: UNC or USC? They entered the season in similar situations — atrocious defenses last year but arguably the two best QBs in college football. It feels like UNC’s defense is significantly improved while USC’s defense still can’t figure out how to tackle, yet interestingly, UNC is still ranked below USC in the AP poll. Stewart Mandel — Right now I would definitely take the Tar Heels, and not just because USC is coming off two unnecessarily close calls against Colorado and Arizona. UNC just looks… Read more »
CBS Sports Inside College Football on USC v ND
1 Brian Jones –– ND (“USC has been tagged with the “S” word — soft“)
2 Rick Neuheisel — USC (“They have Caleb“)
3 Aaron Taylor — ND (He’s a Domer through and through)
4 Randy Cross — ND (“They’ll run the ball on USC for about 250 yds at home”)
Why is it so hard this time around???? Flashback
https://www.normantranscript.com/sports/all_ou_sports/ou-football-lincoln-riley-calls-decision-to-fire-mike-stoops-difficult-but-necessary/article_d7777782-f015-5b72-94a3-1ee9af4ec201.html#:~:text=Riley%20fired%20Stoops%20on%20Sunday,of%20defensive%20coordinator%20Mike%20Stoops.
What exactly is an untrained eye? My eyes are fine what did I miss when the defender failed to wrap up the tackle? Am I not seeing massive holes allowing opponents to run for miles? I guess an expert can see the genius in scheming to one side, while the opponent accidentally exploits the other. Good technique is only good when it works. I have twenty years watching high school football as a band teacher and my untrained eye saw high school players making tackles and running to the ball, stopping other teams. 90% of those kids were going to… Read more »
Theories on the defense.
Golden …..To Me …….Theory # 5 is the probable reality ……. My biggest FEAR is Theory # 3 ………. I ROOT for Theory #2 …..Fight On !!!!!
My biggest fear is #4, unless you have the 11 best open field tacklers in all college football. But like you I’m hoping for #2
Give me 11 Matt Grotegoods. If he got his hands on you, you went down. Bring “Coach” Grotes in to teach these players how to tackle. Simple solution!
ED O once asked me over lunch who was the best HS player I had ever seen in person. I had seen Carson Palmer, DeShaun Foster, DJ Williams, Willie McGinest, and Junior Seau, so I had a tough choice to make. But I couldn’t help it. I said to Ed that Groots took the cake because Groots was the best HS player I ever saw in person, which was basically players in Orange County. He was the most versatile, most instinctive, most clutch, most focused, most technical, most reliable, and also the toughest player IMO. I worried he might be… Read more »
One tough instinctive football player … true natural
Yes Allen, Matty was a tweener with his 5’11” size. But more importantly, he was a winner. PC once said of Groots, when Matt is in the game, things start to happen: fumbles, picks, losses, 3 & outs. You watch those games in the early 2000’s and it was true. I don’t know if we will ever see the likes of him again.
Grinch is a pretender and slow learner. Lineup and stop someone, anyone. That little sub Zona qb, in his 1st road start, wasn’t bothered at all. The confidence opposing Os vs this D scheme is sickening.
USC1988, You analysis is missing a large piece. If you are correct, the issue is not Grinch. Very few humans are capable of evaluating themselves. It is not Grinch’s job to evaluate himself – that is LR’s job. I am willing to give LR this weakness. He is a great HC and who will have SC in the 12 team CFP year after year. We might not be able to win it, but at least we will be in the conversation.
Sounds like what OU fans were telling us all along. You’ll get into the party, but won’t get to celebrate. I wasn’t listening.
GT, Great piece of work! If it is #3, #4, #5, or #6, Grinch is a bad coach and LR has failed to recognize it.
Grinch is gone after the 1st train wreck loss. The 6-0 is saving him. He is paid really well to do his job. His job. It’s obvious now, with the O not scoring 3 out of 4 times. Unbeaten isn’t going to last. 10 wins would be tremendous.
I think #3 was true last year. I hope #2 comes true with more recruiting classes and talent coming in. #1 is true since he was at Washington State under Mike Leach and at Ohio State under Jim Tressel. #4 doesn’t fly with me since these are kids in college and they’ve played football before. #5 can’t be done during the season. #6 seems correct and hope it doesn’t happen.
If you incorporate simple tackling, the defense is 25% better, incorporate good DB play and add another 25%, those two things would give us a top defense.
LOL ….. NY Media just now ….. JUST NOW noticing that there is a “Kinda nice looking game ” on the schedule in college football this weekend ……….Oregon vs Washington …….SMH East Coast media .
The winner will be the favorite to win the conference. That is till they get upset by someone along the way.
Did anyone notice that in the AZ post-game presser, LR made clear that at the end of regulation he did not want to score too quickly. He did not want to give AZ the ball and any time left. So, he was unwilling to trust his D to keep AZ out of the end zone for 40 seconds? Isn’t he admitting he does not trust his D? My guess is LR did not grasp the potential power of the Grinch narrative when he kept Grinch. My guess is also that he has told Grinch that Grinch has to fix this… Read more »
I think that is just sound strategy from LR. Once you are in striking distance in a tie, you hold the ball, run the clock down to 3 seconds, and hopefully kick the game winner (of course, it did not work out that way). More and more these days, you are seeing coaches in this situation call for letting the opponent score once they are in FG range. I did not see AZ trying to do that. But you should not relinquish control of the game by giving the other team the ball back with a chance to win. In… Read more »
Good point. It makes a lot of sense to trust your FG team to win the game with a short FG than to trust your D to stop them with about 40 seconds to go. Lane Kiffin took the TD that and gave LSU the 40 seconds. LSU almost won the game.
Why did they run a RPO on 2nd down then … risking what happened
90% chance CW just runs it in on a naked boot
That whole last regulation series down near the goal lime was disastrous. That first down pass should have been a pick six if the AZ corner did his job. That ball should never have been thrown AT ALL. The RPO on 2nd down, as you note, was a bad play call – never risk a QB/RB exchange in that situation, where you are just protecting the ball and looking for the winning kick. Then we hustled to spike it when all we had to do was call timeout. And then the bungled kick to cap it off. I am a… Read more »
Not even The CAT was remotely capable of that last four-play sequence, the most shocking of which was the guaranteed pick-six the ARIZ CB could have waltzed back had he imagined it was even remotely possible he would see anything like a football in his area.
Yeah, he acted like a stranger tapped him on the shoulder our of nowhere!
It’s looking like Zachariah Branch could get back on the field. That would be massively important, especially on Notre Dame’s Field Turf.
As long as Caleb stays healthy, I think we can and will take ’em.
The weather in South Bend doesn’t help, but this Trojan team has already somehow survived a lot of storms. Maybe those thrillers will help us hold off the Irish — that and a big dose of Zach, Caleb, and MarShawn Lloyd.
The rust will be a concern .. expect a fumbled punt. Hopefully ZB is the special player we think and will go Reggie on ND.
Here’s an interesting take I read somewhere else on the web “I guess if we keep ragging on Grinch and LR, he could fold up his tent in Palos Verdes and say, I have heard enough, and leave. He is 17-3 in 1-1/2 seasons. We are far from perfect and it gets frustrating but this team fights and has won. This is better than Kiffin and Cutty Sark and C. Helton. But I guess in 1 -1/2 years of assembling a team from disastrous 4-8 and totally in the tank, is not acceptable to many. We have the best QB in… Read more »
Allen, Where’s is he going to go? The power of this narrative will follow him where ever he goes. Might as well solve it as SC. Does he think it will be any better in the pros? Ask KK. My take is that LR simply did not grasp the potential power of the Grinch narrative when he chose to bring him and had no idea it would overwhelm his O genius. And I think he is an O genius.
I will post above. I think this is in part a show. And, Jen Cohen has a very interesting challenge.
I remember right after Riley was hired and people were building expectations. The first year turnaround was done simply because they had a new culture and people. Before any games were played most of us were agreeable to it taking up to 3 years to build a contender. That was before Caleb starting playing like something we have never seen. Now it seems people want it right now and the emphasis is on doing it while Caleb is here. I still think it could take us until 2024 to be up there although the possibilities are there for this season.… Read more »
The question being asked not so subtly is Riley being diplomatic to protect his player’s feelings or stupid about the lousy coaching across the room? Last year I would have said it was diplomacy, this year people are wondering how stupid he really is. I propose a different theory. His ego keeps him admitting his mistakes. You choose which mistakes I’m talking about
https://twitter.com/i/status/1711811211065708745
If he wins…….all is forgiven If he goes 3-3 over the next 6 with Caleb…….Riley needs to start worrying about himself. 10-2 with the level of talent he has is understandable. Our lines are not composed of any people that are elite level….except maybe that DT…..and that is a maybe……and the schedule is tough. A 2nd year OK at 10-2. Personally, I’am still waiting to see if the line recruits are anyone the NFL is drooling over. Transfers are nice…..I still think you build a dominant program from recruits. For me it’s all about the recruits this year……for the lines.… Read more »
LR has a job to do and a large contract to honor. He needs to shut up about the easy summer NFL, the quitting at 50.
Recruiting is hard enough without giving opposing coaches more anti SC fuel. Why the hell he would give the media these thoughts are just stupid. Just shut the F up and get bigger players!
Something is up. Riley sandbaging, holding a lot back? Will this team take it out of first gear as they enter the fast lane? Everyone fasten your seat belts and prepare for take off!!
The only thing LR is holding back is firing Alex Grinch . He is not the answer. I don’t know why he can’t coach a simple scheme read and react. Please for the fan base show some pride because we are the laughing stock of college football. Steveg I concur to your point on LR
What would be the most scary is if LR really can’t see his defense is one of the worst in the nation, or can’t see Grinch’s keystone cops schemes being talked about nationally. I just think he knows matchup offense that put his strong players against their weak, but line play and defensive fits / containment may not interesting enough. No special teams coach ?
Grinch gets torched by this blah ND O .. he is tarmaced.
I doubt anyone at USC ever gets tarmaced again.
correct … that is Goatboy Kiffin’s USC legacy
In case you hadn’t heard…
FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff is headed to South Bend for the USC game on Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium.
The Trojans take on the Irish at 4:30 p.m. PT and can be seen live on NBC.
Interesting that the “Big Noon Kickoff” is on FOX, but FOX won’t be televising the game. Probably due to the agreement Notre Dame has with NBC. The deal was done years ago and should have given Larry Scott, the then PAC-12 Commissioner, a blueprint for signing up with a major network. We all know what Scott did and didn’t do. The PAC-12 Network is a disaster. I hope SC has enough Offense to outlast the Irish. It seems as though that is how USC is winning games this year with Caleb Williams leading the way.