USC did win, but Lincoln Riley’s Trojans remain poorly-coached

Nov 16, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; Southern California Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley watches game action against the Nebraska Cornhuskers during the second half at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

USC football did defeat Nebraska on Saturday. It was good to see USC finish a game in the fourth quarter, scoring a touchdown on a game-defining march late in regulation. It was great to see Jayden Maiava fill in for Miller Moss and not only make important plays, but also the kinds of plays Miller Moss simply wouldn’t have been able to make. There’s a reason Lincoln Riley needed to make this move. Maiava’s extra dimensions were part of the larger picture, but the main thing is simply that USC and Riley needed to give Maiava a chance to not only play, but then study and learn over the last three weeks of the season, and hopefully in a bowl game — a game USC is now one win away from clinching. There were certainly a lot of good and encouraging developments to take from this game, and we have noted them.

However, that isn’t the whole story. It can’t be the whole story. While the Jayden Maiava angle is a positive one, and while USC is now closer to getting a bowl bid — which means December practices essential to improving the roster for 2025, a very important thing — we can’t ignore the deeper problem surrounding the Trojans: They are not a well-coached football team. They did beat Nebraska, but it’s not as though this was a transformed group. USC did make the extra handful of plays needed to win, but the Trojans let a mediocre team hang around, and they still couldn’t create real separation in the fourth quarter. There were lots of reasons for this, and we are going to dive into them below:

OFFENSIVE LINE

Monheim — Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports

The offensive line…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/usc-did-win-lincoln-rileys-164900460.html

Author : Trojans Wire

Publish date : 2024-11-17 16:49:00

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