Lincoln Riley of the USC Trojans leaves the game again in fifth loss of the season

USC Trojans coach Lincoln Riley was known as a “quarterback guru” during his days at Oklahoma, but it was balanced attacks that made his Air Raid offense difficult to defend. The most successful teams were the ones that had an elite rushing attack. Whether it was with a pocket quarterback in Baker Mayfield, or a mobile quarterback in Kyler Murray and Jalen Hurts, Oklahoma leaned heavily on the run game. His counter plan, which has now become a staple of college football, caused many problems for the defense. That version of Riley no longer exists.

Throughout the season, USC has often given up on the run game, essentially taking away their most productive player on the offensive side of the ball in Woody Marks. The Trojans’ coach has become happy in 2024. Miller Moss threw the ball 50 times again in Saturday’s loss to the Washington Huskies. It’s the third game this season that Moss has thrown the ball at least 50 times.

Mayfield had just two games with at least 40 pass attempts in three seasons under Riley, one was during his Heisman season in 2017. Murray had two games with at least 35 pass attempts in his 2018 Heisman campaign. Hurts had two games with at least 30 pass attempts. Caleb Williams had one game with 50 pass attempts in his three seasons under Riley at Oklahoma and USC.

Riley had 11 seasons of wins with each of these quarterbacks running a balanced offense, but this season was a different story.

In the first half, USC had 29 pass attempts versus just eight run plays. Riley was asked about his decision not to run the ball in the first half after the loss.

“I mean, we tried, we didn’t do a great job. We had to do better, I had to do better, I mean, none of it was good enough in the first half,” Riley said.

The Trojans’ offense finally got going in the second half when they decided to lean into the run game. Runs of 15, 14 and 13 yards by Marks on three consecutive plays helped move the ball into Washington territory. Setting up the run game helped the entire offense, as later in that drive Moss found an open Makai Lemon, who got behind the defense for a 37-yard touchdown.

On the next possession, a 16-yard run by Marks helped spark the drive. A big 42-yard completion to Zachariah Branch’s off-play play on the next play put the Trojans in the red zone. And then two plays late, Moss connected with Kyle Ford for a 9-yard touchdown to take their first lead of the night. The game had completely changed and suddenly the momentum had shifted to the Trojans as Marks became the focal point of the attack.

Even during their 15-play drive late in the fourth quarter, 12 of the plays were runs before Marks was stuffed into the backfield on fourth and goal.

That begs the question: What if Riley hadn’t waited until the second half to get into the run game, would the outcome have been different?

The decision to throw the ball 50 times against the No. 1 pass defense in the country is certainly a questionable one. This isn’t the first time Riley has gone against the run. Against Maryland, 13 of the first 15 plays were passes. Moss finished the night with 50 pass attempts versus 24 rush attempts. Against Michigan, the Trojans had 51 pass attempts versus just 21 rush attempts. USC is 0-3 in games this season when Moss throws the ball at least 50 times.

Despite the results, Riley feels no need to change what the Trojans have done.

“It’s not like we’re getting a kick in the ass. It’s not like I’m going back to the drawing board thinking, “Gah, we’re doing this terribly, and people are wearing us down with this or that.” It’s not that,” Riley said.