Alex Grinch met with reporters on Tuesday night and discussed what went wrong defensively in USC’s 48-41 win over Colorado last week.

The Trojans held a 41-14 lead at one point, but ended up having to survive an onside kick late in the game to secure the win.

Grinch pointed to “individual errors” that helped fuel Colorado’s comeback.

“Individual plays and individual drives. I think to come up with one blanket statement would be inaccurate,” Grinch said. “It would be nice to be able to do that. I think it’s a number of different things. I think you’ve got to make sure if you’re scoreboard watching, and that affects your behavior on the field, that’s a maturity issue.

Grinch acknowledged frustrations with the reality that USC’s late-game defense while protecting a lead has been an issue over the past couple of seasons.

“We can’t come up with a coaching point or a moment or a collection of guys can say that’s never going to happen again, but unfortunately we’ve also been down this road before,” Grinch said. “That’s one of the messages. We’ve got to make sure we fight, scratch and claw for 60 minutes. That tackle we made in the first quarter, we’ve got to go make it again in the fourth.”

It’s been another tough season so far for Grinch and the Trojans defense. That unit is yielding 5.54 yards per attempt so far in 2023, which ranks 8th in the Pac-12.

However, there’s reason to believe that number could get worse before it gets better. The Trojans have yet to face a top-50 offense by yards-per-play this season. Their future schedule includes 4 offenses (Notre Dame, UCLA, Washington and Oregon) that currently rank in the top 15 nationally in that category.

USC will face Arizona in Week 6.