State College — Lincoln Riley entered his fifth season as the USC head coach with an immense amount of pressure.
The noise around Riley’s tenure only ramped up after a loss to West Coast rival to Oregon on Sept. 26. The following week against Washington “fire Lincoln” chants broke out at two separate points in the game before the Trojans engineered an 11-point second half comeback.
Riley hasn’t been just a hot topic in college football, he’s been the topic. It’s what comes with coaching at blue blood like USC with a rich and storied history. Everything is magnified and Riley understands that.
The Trojans traveled to Penn State on Saturday and faced one of the most hostile environments in college football. A rocking crowd of 114,419 packed inside Beaver Stadium for the White Out game. And for the third consecutive week, Southern Cal played at 4:30 p.m. PT on NBC. A prime time slot that puts Riley’s squad in front of a national audience.
After a failed onside kickoff to start the second half led to a Nittany Lions field goal that gave them a 20-17 lead, USC buttoned up and walked away with a 31-23. Quarterback Jayden Maiava played undoubtedly his best game on the road in the Cardinal and Gold. The defense made the necessary adjustments and allowed a total of six points in the second half.
Lincoln Riley Fires Back at the Naysayers
Riley did not hide his excitement on the field. A fiery Riley spiked his headset down following the win and jumping around while he headed to midfield to shake hands with Penn State coach Matt Campbell.
That joy carried into the tunnel below Beaver Stadium and Riley made sure to let everyone know about it his excitement in the postgame presser.
“We didn’t listen to all you guys had to say on the outside, we didn’t really care,” Riley said. “Nobody in the world gave us a chance to win this game and we did it and we did our way and on our terms. Really damn proud of this football team. The best is ahead for this group.
“This will be a big spark for us going into the bye week and this next stretch of the season. Huge contributions all sides. Tough place to play, really hard place to win. You really got to outplay them to beat them and we did that tonight and we did it on all three sides and it feels damn good.”
But he does listen. That’s why he claimed “they’re probably chanting something different in Los Angeles now.” His postgame comments were directed at a fan base that has largely turned on him in recent weeks and the media that has been talking about his shortcomings.
Again, Riley has been the No. 1 story in college football for weeks now.
The truth is Riley hasn’t delivered in tough spots throughout his tenure. But he did in Happy Valley over the weekend and soaked in every moment of it. He sat on the bench after the game and later returned well after his media availability and took a lap around the field. The staff had to come look for him.
Regardless of what people’s viewpoints may be of Riley, he’s still human. And it’s easy to tell the past few weeks have weighed on him, which made Saturday night’s win even more satisfying.
His team could have folded on him after a tough loss, the way they did back in 2023. Instead, USC has responded, wining each of their last two games and have picked up some momentum heading into the bye week. It’s been a USC vs. everybody approach, with an emphasis on everybody. That includes the fan base.
“The outside noise is always going to be over the top no matter what’s happening,” Riley said. “Your ability to deal with that as a coach and as a team is critical if you want to have success in this job. I thought our team blocked out everything. Our team knows how good of a team we have in that locker room and didn’t flinch.”
Lincoln Riley Issues a Warning
USC will have its first bye week before heading to Wisconsin on Oct. 24. The bye comes at the perfect time for the Trojans, who sit at 6-1 and have a tough schedule ahead of them, which includes ranked matchups against Ohio State, Indiana and UCLA.
“Winning tough games like this are everything,” Riley said. “You look up at the end of the season, the teams that win tough road games are kind of there in the end. We proved that we can do that. Watch out for this group. We got a couple of bye weeks upcoming in this stretch here. We’ll get a couple of guys healthy.
“We got some young guys getting better really fast. Just scratching the surface. You saw a little bit of the firepower tonight but there’s way more left in this group and we’re gonna get better and better and if we keep doing that we’re gonna be tough.”
Sign up to our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook, and X for the latest news.
Add us as a preferred source on Google