Football | September 13, 2022
There wasn’t too much that surprised USC head coach Lincoln Riley when reviewing Saturday’s game film against Stanford.
“We had a pretty good beat on it during the game,” Riley said. “A ton of positives, a ton to get better at.”
One of the issues Riley is looking to correct is the No. 7 Trojans’ offensive efficiency through four quarters. After an electric first half against the Cardinal, USC was limited to just two field goals in the second half of the game. Riley weighed in Tuesday on whether the team “took their foot off the gas” at one point.
“I think it’s very possible,” the head coach said. “At times we intentionally slowed it down a little bit. But slow it down doesn’t mean don’t execute. You can call a play and snap it with 30 seconds left, or snap it with five seconds left, you’ve still got to execute. And the reality is, when we slowed it down, our execution went down.”
Riley explained that the third quarter presented an opportunity for the team to run the clock and develop its run game in live action. The ability to grind out a game clock, he argued, is a key skill to have in order to win games.
“It’s not necessarily ‘four-minute mode,’ but you’ve got to be able to operate at different paces. And when we slowed down some in the second half, we obviously did not operate the way we expect to.”
Notes from USC’s Tuesday practice of Fresno State Week:
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Riley previewed Fresno State as an opponent with “not many…
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