Caleb Williams, USC effectively eliminated from Pac-12 title race with loss to Oregon
EUGENE, Ore. — Lincoln Riley called last season’s team the “least talented” group that he’ll coach at USC. Yet this season’s group has the most losses for any Riley-coached team.
USC’s 36-27 loss to No. 6 Oregon on Saturday at Autzen Stadium effectively eliminated the Trojans from Pac-12 championship contention. While not officially knocked out of the conference championship race, USC’s need for Oregon (9-1, 6-1 Pac-12) to drop its final two games along with help from other three-loss teams to force a complicated multi-team tiebreaker was too complex for even Riley to ponder.
Sitting in a noisy white tent outside of the USC locker room, the coach who stubbornly held onto any glimmer of hope acknowledged the harsh reality. The Trojans, with a final game left of the regular season, aren’t a championship team this year.
“It’s the first game we’ve played here at USC where we’re out of the championship race,” Riley said of next Saturday’s rivalry game against UCLA at the Coliseum. “We don’t intend on playing any more like this, but games like this show the character of the program.”
In the wake of defensive coordinator Alex Grinch’s firing, USC coach Lincoln Riley is confident the Trojans will eventually “play great defense here.”
The Trojans (7-4, 5-3 Pac-12) have dropped four of their past five games and have only bragging rights and bowl positioning to play for when they face the Bruins Saturday. A rivalry game with such low stakes felt like an improbable scenario just five weeks ago. USC was 6-0 and still in the College Football Playoff semifinals conversation.
But it was all a far-flung dream.
The back-loaded schedule exposed USC’s defensive flaws to the point that Riley had no choice but to fire defensive coordinator Alex Grinch a week ago. The dramatic midseason coaching change did little to change the results on the field.
Oregon quarterback Bo Nix threw 77- and 84-yard touchdowns on his first two passes and finished with 412 passing yards and four touchdowns. The Ducks scored two touchdowns in five combined plays. Nix threw his longest touchdown pass of the year on a third-and-13. Oregon used a fourth-down offside penalty that negated a USC stop to extend a drive that ended nine plays later with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Terrance Ferguson.
“When you play a really good football team like we’ve played the last few weeks, those were the margins. That’s the difference,” Riley said. “Last year, we made a few more of those, it feels like, than we have this year. We just had a few too many key breakdowns that made a lot of these games close. It’s one play here or there — that’s the gap that we have to make up.”
USC’s Caleb Williams tried to make up for this lapses himself. The junior threw for 291 yards and one touchdown on 19-of-34 passing. He was sacked three times running from Oregon’s relentless pressure.
The reigning Heisman Trophy winner willed the Trojans to an eight-point halftime deficit that felt like a minor victory in front of a packed crowd and an Oregon team that has emerged as the Pac-12’s strongest since losing to rival Washington on Oct. 14. Williams slung a 10-yard pass to Austin Jones over his head like a hook shot. He scrambled for eight yards on a critical third-and-five in the red zone to set up a five-yard game-tying touchdown from MarShawn Lloyd in the first quarter. He kept the Trojans within one possession with a two-yard touchdown run with 12 seconds left in the first half.
Oregon’s self-inflicted mistakes let USC stay close. The Ducks committed 13 penalties for a loss of 120 yards and missed a field-goal attempt with 6:27 to go in the fourth quarter. The Trojans responded with a 13-yard touchdown run by Jones with 3:44 left but failed to convert on a two-point try to pull within one possession.
Oregon recovered USC’s onside kick and converted on fourth-and-seven to ice the game as Nix found running back Bucky Irving wide open in the flat for a 10-yard gain.
“It’s tough to lose and tough to not be in a position to win championships, which you train super hard for for years, to be in position to win championships,” Williams said. “Like coach [Riley] said, we’ve been in many close games. Last year, a couple may have fallen our way, and this year, a couple haven’t. It’s tough to deal with, but you have to keep going.”
With Williams as the first of Riley’s Heisman-winning quarterbacks who returned for a college encore, USC had higher hopes than settling for pride as a consolation prize during its rivalry game against UCLA.
“It’s tough,” said receiver Tahj Washington, who had four catches for 82 yards. “We play every game to win and just living with the ride of, ‘what is’ versus ‘what could have been.’”
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