USC reeling after second straight loss and a series of struggles

LOS ANGELES – It probably is too simplistic, and maybe unfair, to say that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham owns Lincoln Riley. But after USC’s third straight loss to Utah Saturday night, this one in excruciating fashion, the thought came to mind that Whittingham not only owns him but might contemplate renting him out as an Airbnb during the summer.

Utah beat Riley’s Trojans twice last season, a 43-42 regular season thriller in Salt Lake City in October and a 47-24 rout in the Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas. Saturday night’s result was even more excruciating, a 34-32 Utah victory on Cole Becker’s 38-yard field goal as time expired, just 1:46 after USC had taken the lead for the first time since late in the first quarter.

USC’s shot at getting to the College Football Playoff is done, of course. It was probably done after last week’s rout at Notre Dame, but the Utes definitively slammed the lid shut. USC’s chances of getting back to the Pac-12 championship game are fading fast, too. The Trojans are 4-1 in conference but after facing Cal next week in Berkeley – presumably a breather, but you never know – they get Washington here and Oregon in Eugene. By the time they face UCLA in the Coliseum on Nov. 18 they could be playing for a spot in the LA Bowl.

Not exactly what anyone here expected, right? It’s definitely not what the high-priced, high-profile coach was expected to deliver.

Riley insisted that his team is still focused, though at times in his postgame remarks he discussed outside distractions, at one point saying, “When you get too focused on the outside things, which I think, at times, our team has been, then a lot of times you can miss an opportunity right in front of you.”

The question involved those national championship aspirations and the impact they can have on young athletes playing for a glamorous program in a glamorous city with seemingly limitless NIL opportunities. Certainly, those can be head-spinning.

But you can also make the case that the biggest outside noise generated here – even bigger than the weekly criticism of the Trojans’ defense – was of Riley’s own making a month ago when he attempted to bar SCNG beat writer Luca Evans from access to the team for two weeks. He reversed that decision after two days, but not before he and the USC program received a firestorm of criticism from coast to coast.

The attempt to control the narrative continues, incidentally. No players were made available following Saturday night’s loss.

As for this week’s defensive report, consider: Utah (6-1 overall, 3-1 in conference) entered Saturday night 122nd in the nation in passing offense, 149.5 yards a game. Bryson Barnes, who had thrown 66 passes all season for 79.6 yards a game, was 14 for 23 for 235 yards and three touchdowns, and Utah added 247 yards on the ground for a season-high 482 yards total offense. The other times they’d topped 400 this year were against Weber State and Cal.

Barnes and Nate Johnson have both played in the absence of Cam Rising, who is still recovering from multiple ligament tears suffered in last January’s Rose Bowl. Rising was No. 1 on the depth chart going into Saturday’s game, but Whittingham said afterward he’ll be shut down for the rest of the season and likely will seek a waiver to regain a year of eligibility.

“We’re six games in, (and he’s) not ready to play, nope,” Whittingham said. “We’ve been hoping for him each week, but the medical staff is the one to make those calls, and we’re not going to question that at all.”

Consider, also, that Whittingham maintained faith in his stopgap quarterback even after Calen Bullock’s 30-yard interception return for a score early in the fourth quarter. “Bryson is our guy, he’s our quarterback, and we have confidence in him,” Whittingham said. “We just keep moving forward with the guys that we have healthy.”

Bullock’s score brought USC within 28-23 on a night that its offense sputtered plenty after the first quarter, and made it close enough that two decisions by Riley to settle for Denis Lynch field goals – on a fourth-and-9 from the Utah 27 at the end of the third quarter, and a fourth-and-15 from the Utah 19 with 3:03 left – turned out to be significant. In an era where coaches can be foolhardy on fourth down, these were sane decisions.

Equally significant, if not more so: On the two touchdowns the Trojans did score in the fourth quarter, Bullock’s pick six and Caleb Williams’ 11-yard run on a quarterback draw with 1:46 left for a 32-31 lead – immediately following a 61-yard punt return by Zachariah Branch – they went for two both times and misfired on each.

Making either one would have meant that what turned out to be the game-ending kick would only have forced overtime. Come to think of it, kicking both extra points would have meant the same.

And it all went awry anyway, when Utah went 75 yards on 11 plays in the final 1:46, helped by two reviewed plays, three timeouts and three penalties, including a targeting penalty on Bear Alexander at the end of a third-and-9 play that moved the ball from the Utes’ 26 to their 49. The other key play was a 26-yard rush by Barnes on second-and-15 with 16 seconds left to get the ball to the Trojans 19, well within Becker’s range.

“It comes down to little things here and there, and we haven’t quite played clean enough here in the last couple of weeks to take advantage of it,” Riley said. “We have played very hard, and the guys really sold out. We got a lot better this week at practice, and our fight cannot be questioned.”

But it’s obvious that this has not been a well-oiled Trojan machine in recent weeks, with the second-half defensive collapse at Colorado, the far more difficult than necessary overtime win over Arizona, last week’s debacle at Notre Dame and Saturday night’s soul-crushing loss to the Utes. Even Williams, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner, hasn’t quite seemed himself lately.

Maybe it’s an aftereffect of the Trojans’ major use of the transfer portal. Maybe the coaching staff isn’t quite getting through to these players the way it did initially. And maybe those distractions – self-inflicted and otherwise – have taken a toll. But something seems off.

Riley can say all he wants about practicing well, but the proof comes on the field – and on the scoreboard – on game day. And right now, harsh as it might sound, these Trojans don’t seem that much more disciplined than those of the Clay Helton era.

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USC reeling after second straight loss and a series of struggles – Daily News

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