The chorus felt frustratingly acquainted. Right here once more, within the wake of one other disappointing defeat, was the identical rosy message from Lincoln Riley, reassuring the general public that USC was actually just some performs, just a few stops, just a few inches away from the place its coach wished them to be.
It’s all a matter of perspective. Nonetheless, nevertheless shut USC may need come, nevertheless “battle-tested” it would now be, the cruel actuality is Riley has misplaced seven of his final 12 because the Trojans coach. That’s equal to the worst 12-game stretch of Clay Helton’s tenure as USC’s coach.
With No. 4 Penn State on faucet Saturday on the Coliseum, the Trojans now discover themselves enjoying for his or her Faculty Soccer Playoff lives in mid-October, with zero room for error.
“I promise you,” Riley mentioned this week, “we’re still a very confident team. This isn’t some team that has two losses where we got our ass kicked. No, that’s not the case. We know what we’re capable of.”
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Miller Moss had loads of time to contemplate that topic on the lengthy flight dwelling from Minneapolis on Oct. 5.
“The most important thing for us right now,” the quarterback mentioned, “is everything we stood for, we worked for, all the messages we said to the team that said what we were about, when you face adversity like this, that’s when that gets tested the most.”
Arising, in opposition to Penn State this weekend, is that fork-in-the-road second.
“We have two pretty clear choices,” Moss continued. “Double down on who we are and get closer as a team and go forward with the great opportunity we have this weekend, or let this affect us and deter us from what we ultimately want to do.”
We must always, by Saturday night time, have a significantly better concept which path the Trojans have chosen.
