A year ago, any USC fan would've been thrilled to death with an 11-3 season, a Pac-12 championship, a Cotton Bowl berth and a likely AP Top 10 finish. Having watched it play out, though... pleased? Sure. Encouraged? Absolutely. But thrilled?
No matter the circumstances, it's hard to be thrilled watching the way the end of USC's season played out. In the Pac-12 Championship, with a certain College Football Playoff berth waiting, USC watched a 27-24 fourth quarter deficit turn into a 47-24 loss to Utah. That setback followed a 43-42 overtime regular-season loss to Utah, in a game the Trojans led 28-14 late in the first half and 42-35 deep in the fourth quarter.
On Monday, USC watched a 45-30 lead with four minutes to play wilt into a 46-45 loss to Tulane.
"I've rarely at the end of the year felt so conflicted. On one hand, sick about the way we finished the season, particularly the fourth quarter of the last two games. We lost three games this year, two of them on the last play of the game. It's a tough pill to swallow," USC head coach Lincoln Riley said after the game.
"The flip side of it is, we were in those positions (to play in the Pac-12 Championship and a New Year's Six game)."
USC utterly dominated possession of the ball on Monday. USC's offense ran an unremarkable 69 plays, but went 13-of-15 on money downs. That success allowed the Trojans to move the chains 29 times and possess the ball for 11 seconds shy of 40 minutes.
And in just over 20 minutes of their own possession time, Tulane ran 52 plays for 539 yards. Tulane's running game was a true green wave, churning out 305 yards on just 34 carries. Quarterback Michael Pratt completed just eight of his 18 passes, but those eight completions traveled 234 yards.
"This one hurts but it gives complete clarity on what we need to do next," Riley said.
USC will finish the season allowing 6.53 yards per play (125th nationally) and 29.2 points per game (95th). The scoring number represents a slight improvement from 2021, but the 2022 Trojans allowed 0.16 yards per play more than the previous team.
The Trojans' defense simply fell apart down the stretch. USC allowed 6.84 yards per play and 45 points to UCLA; 27 points on 7.85 a play to Notre Dame; 47 points on 7.72 a play in the Pac-12 Championship; and 44 points (two came on a safety) on astounding 10.4 a play on Monday. Those numbers -- as well as any viewing of a USC game -- reflect obvious deficiencies in USC's defense and its team strength, and one shudders at the thought at how bad the numbers would've been had the the Trojans not forced 27 turnovers, sixth most in the nation.
After the game, Riley was not ready to make any sweeping judgments about what USC needs to change in 2023 and how it needs to go about doing it.
"We'll take a deep dive into every part of it here over the next couple weeks," he said. "We'll lay out a plan just like we did when we landed in LA 13 months ago. You take a deep dive of it, you assess what you've got and how we can make it better, and you go to work. Now we just repeat this process knowing a little bit more about this roster."
Riley called Monday's loss "as tough as I can remember in my career."
Far be it for me to correct the man on his feelings in the games he coached while I merely watched, but I'll respectfully categorize that as a fog-of-battle comment. Riley's first season at Oklahoma ended in a remarkably similar way, only with higher stakes.
In the 2018 Rose Bowl, Oklahoma led Georgia 31-14 late in the first half and 45-38 late in the fourth quarter before ultimately falling 54-48 in double overtime. I rated that game, a College Football Playoff semifinal, as the third best game of the decade.
The relative pain of the 2018 Rose Bowl and the 2022 Cotton Bowl is not important. What is important, however, is if Riley makes a different decision coming out of this painful loss as he did coming out of the last one. Following that Rose Bowl loss, Riley brought back defensive coordinator Mike Stoops before ultimately firing him midway through the following year. He promoted Ruffin McNeill for the second half of the 2018 season and Oklahoma returned to the CFP, but the Sooners were quickly out-matched and out-muscled against Alabama.
Riley hired Grinch before the 2019 season. Oklahoma jumped from 102nd to 63rd in yards per play in Grinch's first season, then jumped again to 26th in 2020. But Riley's defenses have once again slipped to pre-2019 levels in each of the past two seasons.
"There's a ton of great momentum in this program, and today's result, as sick as it is, doesn't change that," Riley said." The reality of it is, we're not going anywhere. We know what we need to get better at as a program. We have to finish better. We were really, really close.
"We made a pretty big jump in Year 1 and I wouldn't bet against us to make another big jump next year."