Everything Lincoln Riley said after USC's win over Stanford
Caleb Williams led No. 10 USC’s electric offensive offense Saturday night to five first-half touchdowns as the Trojans beat rival Stanford 41-28 in Palo Alto.
It was USC’s first win over the Cardinal (1-1, 0-1 Pac-12) in Stanford Stadium since 2014. The victory also gave new Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley his first conference win with USC (2-0, 1-0 Pac-12).
Riley met with the media after the game to discuss the defense, improvement going forward, and much more. Here’s everything he said:
Opening statement
“We’re really excited about the win. We came down here for one reason. This series has been really one-sided over the last 15 years, especially here, so we took that personal. Kind of the two sides of you right now, I’m thrilled for the victory, and that overshadows, I think — not overshadows — that’s definitely the number one thought and takeaway.
“Just look at 12 months ago. Look at 12 months ago. This is a good Stanford team and a lot’s changed. I’m proud of the way our guys responded. Getting road victories in conference (play) are like gold. I told you all that at the beginning of the week, and that was huge for us.
“The good is really, really good on all three sides. The bad is not good enough right now. And that’s coaching. That’s offense. That’s defense. That’s special teams. There’s too (many) inconsistencies. For us, that would be great to raise the ceiling of our play, but more than anything, we’ve got to take the bottom part of our play, the not good plays, we’ve got to raise those up. That’s the number one thing for us right now.
“But I thought the sides complemented each other, took care of each other. The turnovers, I think, were the biggest thing again two weeks in a row defensively. Obviously, the two red zone turnovers were huge at that point, and offense did a good job of taking advantage of those turnovers in the first half and built a pretty nice lead.
“Didn’t play up to our standard offensively in the second half. Had some opportunities, had some good field position. We didn’t do a good job on third downs. The Rice offensive PI was a huge play in the game. Wasn’t very good by me. Wasn’t very good for the offense in the second half.”
“Loved our defense closing it out. Still had a few too many mistakes, like you’re going to have in a second game, but we found ways to win and separate it on the road.
“Proud of these guys. I know we’ve got a lot of work to do. Our best football is a long ways away from where we are right now.”
On Stanford’s slow-mesh offense
“Yeah, it’s their RPO game. It’s unique, kind of how long they take, especially to not have any linemen downfield calls with that, I would consider that not a minor miracle, but a major miracle.
“You’ve got to defend it. We missed a couple of gaps in the run game. I thought we defended the throws honestly pretty well. We had a lot of PBUs. We had a couple with a pick. I thought a couple of the interference calls were… I’m not saying they’re bad calls, they’re competitive calls, but I thought a couple of them we were in really great position, and we take that exact same technique all season.
“But we needed to do a little bit better job in the run game. So we were explosive defensively — the sacks, the turnovers were great. We’ve got to be more consistent.”
On defensive fixes
“I think the easiest fix is just that we’re still making a few too many mental mistakes throughout the course of the game where we’re not in a gap or not lined up or not playing a call the way that it’s designed. I thought we did a pretty good job tackling. We’re getting the ball out. We’re playing really, really hard. There’s a lot of good, physical plays out there, but we’ve got to clean up the mental execution.
“Right now in this game, we gave up a few too many plays where we’re not in the gap, and against a good offense like that, you make it a lot easier on them than obviously we planned to.”
On whether the defensive inconsistencies can be attributed to all the newness around the defense
“We’re just not going to use that crutch. Our opponents aren’t going to play us any different. We’ve got to get better. We’re doing a lot of good. We know we’ve got to get better. Coaching-wise, we’ve got to get better. Playing-wise, we’ve got to get better. Should it get better as we go? If we’re the team we think we can be, then yes. So you definitely expect constant improvement, but I’m not the guy who’s going to sit here and say, well, it’s just not good enough right now because we haven’t had enough time yet. No excuses. We can play better. We can coach better.
“That’s offense too. Look at the offense in the second half. No excuses from us. We know what to do. We know how to coach. We did it a lot. There was much more positive than negative tonight, so I do not want that to be the vibe walking out here, and it’s darn sure not in that locker room right now. Again, look at 12 months ago. But the best teams do continue to improve throughout the year, and that’s our expectation.”
On whether he feels the offense is on-schedule two weeks in
“I don’t really try to decide like if it’s on or off schedule. Like to me, it’s just… I believe that group, like the other groups in our team, can be really, really good. We’ve had some really good moments here in the first two games that I’m extremely excited about. We have a lot to clean up and a lot of consistency to find again coaching-wise, playing-wise.
“We’re just on our climb, right? We’re just on our journey. I think all three units of this football team can be really, really good, but we’ve got to continue to improve and do it more often.”
On the team’s physicality
“I thought for the most part we were pretty physical. I did. I thought we hit. I thought the o-line for the majority of the game did a nice job up front. I thought we tackled. We knocked the ball out. We held onto the ball. We ran through tackles. We did most of the things you need to do. Can it get better? Sure. Of course it can. But we are certainly improving there and embracing the team we want to be in terms of physicality.”
On Max Williams
“This guy’s been a warrior for us. He had a little medical thing done after spring. He could easily not push through spring and had it done then. He didn’t do it. He waited and got every single rep he possibly could, fought for it, got everything cleaned up, and was back full go in fall camp when he wasn’t quite 100 percent.
“This guy in a lot of ways embodies what we want in this program, a toughness, an edge, a desire to be out there. And that’s why you see him making some of the plays he is and improving like he is. He’s been an absolute warrior for us.”
On playing Fresno State in Week 3
“It will be fun. An in-state matchup. I have a ton of respect for Jeff Tedford. I coached against him a long, long time ago when I was just getting started and obviously watched the jobs he’s done at his various spots. He was always one of those guys you looked up to. So it will be very cool to get to coach against him. We’ll be excited to be back in the Coliseum. I’d imagine people back home are pretty excited about this team, and you’ve got to come watch them. They’re pretty fun to watch.”