A VooDoo doll. A Ouija board. Tarot cards. What or who is absolutely tormenting USC football this season?
The Trojans for the fourth time this season snatched defeat straight out of the jaws of victory, and a season that opened with College Football Playoff aspirations emboldened by an initial win against LSU has spiraled off Santa Monica Pier.
The latest come-from-ahead loss was so vexing that third-year Trojans coach Lincoln Riley had a three, maybe four-word answer when asked how he explained USC's inability to close out a win. Again.
Up 21-7 at halftime against host Maryland, a team that entered having lost its last two Big Ten contests by a combined 41 points, USC had a late field goal blocked and saw the Terps score the game-winning touchdown.
Final: 29-28.
Why? Why are the Trojans suddenly college football's worst bullpen, incapable of closing out a win?
"I, I don't know," Riley said brusquely.
He opened his postgame comments with talk of a "heartbreaking way to end it. I know it's been kind of the tale of the last few weeks. Do some good things, get a lead and then obviously have not been able to finish these games. This one, this one was symptomatic of all three sides and all three sides had opportunities.
"Didn't make enough plays. That's road football for you. And, heartbroken for the guys in the locker room. It's been a really tough stretch, emotionally it's tough, man. When you fight like these guys are fighting, put yourself in position to win some of these games, doing a lot of good things out there but it just, it just simply hasn't been enough. Just like last week, I own it. It's my responsibility. I've got to get this team to play better at the end of games, and I've obviously not done a good enough job of that. Clearly. It's a tough one to swallow."
Simply put, there's been too many "tough ones" for the Trojans to swallow since Riley's magical 11-1 start to his run atop USC prior to the 2022 season.
Yes, 11 wins in the first 12 games. Eleven wins in the 22 games since that time.
Moreover, Riley has been brutalized in close games the past two seasons. The Trojans were 3-3 last year in contests decided by 10 or fewer points but have mustered just one win in five such games this season.
Seven losses in your last 11 games decided essentially in the fourth quarter is a trending problem, even after an offseason defensive overhaul to nab one of the game's top young minds in D'Anton Lynn.
"The game doesn't care that you've had some real close, heartbreaking losses before," Riley said. "These weeks are their own weeks, their own nights; it's kind of a strange stretch that we've been in. I don't know that i can really compare it to anything I've experienced in my career. We've got two choices going forward and those two choices are pretty obvious and so we've got a quick-turnaround game here on Friday night against Rutgers, so we've got to come back and be ready to go.
"We've had so many games that have come right down to it in a row. And I've been a part of other teams that had other things that were kind of their thing that they had a hard time getting over. But yeah, I just think the one that's made this unique is just how emotional all of them are, how heartbreaking the losses are. And it's like that over and over again. And that's probably been the challenge, you know?
"If you're not good on third down on defense or you're not good in the red zone on offense, yeah that's going to put a strain on you. But our strain has been play good, play good enough to have lead, to have opportunities to win games and not finish them. That's probably the toughest thing you can experience in football. We've experienced it several times over. We're emphasizing it. We're working on it."
Riley added, "Obviously, we've got to do a better job of it. We're doing a lot of the heavy lifting ... the inability to finish them off, it eats at you."
What it also does is erode a coach's equity, and that 11-11 current stretch is far outstripping that 11-1 opening these days.
See all of Riley's comments below: