Lincoln Riley still has belief that his Trojans can compete for a championship in some form or fashion in Year 1. Even after a 43-42 loss to Utah this past Saturday. Even after the defense spent the first half of the season being dissected and denigrated.

In his postgame press conference on Saturday, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said he doesn’t think a team makes it through the Pac-12 slate unbeaten this season. While that might seem like a negative viewpoint when it comes to the College Football Playoff race, a loss — depending on the circumstances — isn’t the death nail it’s made to be in the moment.

Twenty of the 32 teams selected to the CFP have been one-loss teams. Riley has coached on four of them.

“I’ve been here. I know what this looks like,” the Trojan head coach said during his weekly appearance on the Trojans Live radio show. “I’ve been a part of teams four different times where we suffered a loss at some point in the year and we ended up with a ring on our finger and in the College Football Playoff.”

While at Oklahoma, Riley led teams to four straight Big 12 titles from 2017-20. None of those Oklahoma teams made it through the regular-season conference slate unbeaten.

ESPN’s Football Power Index still gives USC the eighth-best chance of any team in the country to make the CFP, and the best chance of any Pac-12 team.

“How can you not be excited about what we’ve done up to this point and, in a lot of ways, the position we put ourselves in Saturday night against the defending conference champion in probably their biggest home game of the year?” Riley asked. “One play at the end of the game is not going to change how you feel about your football team.”

Riley said his team battles. He likes the competitive spirit. When USC comes out of its bye week, it’ll play three straight against teams who are a combined 3-7 in conference play. That stretch begins with Arizona in Tucson on Oct. 29. There’s a chance to get right before a Nov. 19 game against UCLA.

“I know what it looks like,” Riley reiterated, “and I think this team is capable of a tremendous run here to finish.”