Lincoln Riley discusses USC’s 25-21 victory over Washington

On Saturday evening, the USC football team defeated Washington 25-21 at the Coliseum. With the victory, the Trojans improved to 5-1 on the season and 2-1 in Big Ten play.

Following the game, USC head coach Lincoln Riley spoke to the media. Here are some of the highlights of what he had to say:

"Hard fought win from the guys. I'm feeling excited about some of the steps we took and some of the clutch plays we made. Defensively, we just kept answering the bell all night.

"Obviously, lots to clean up, lots to be excited about, and yeah, I'm proud of the team. I'm proud of the fight. We had to dig deep for this one, there's no question."

"Penalties were just massive in this game. It felt like for a long period of the game we were really outplaying them. But when you make some of those mistakes, you just kind of let them keep hanging around, and we just had missed opportunities that were penalty after penalty. So, we clearly have to do a way better job on that. We had alignment penalties, we had a couple dead ball personal fouls, at the worst times possible. So, despite all that, to overcome it and overcome what we've had to this week, and come out and get a win against a quality Big Ten opponent. We'll take it."

On the team's mindset when trailing 21-10 in the third quarter

"I mean, we were even pretty steady at half. We felt like we were outplaying them. We just couldn't get out of our own way a little bit, and that's going to be probably a defining thing for this team going forward, right? How much of that we can do. I am proud though that we never wavered. I felt like the guys didn't waver, the coaches didn't waver. We made the adjustments that we needed to. We didn't get into the poor us. We caused a penalty here, or should have this been called there? We just kind of had a whatever it's going to take attitude, and that's what it took."

"Our D line is the tip of the spear. We have put a massive emphasis in every way possible to make our D line as good as we can, and we're to the point where we need to expect a big time performance out of that group every week. They're good enough to do it. That's our mentality, and if they're going to be the tip of the spear, then they have to bring it every single week. And they did tonight. They largely affected the game against a guy that's challenging because if you rush him too much, you can open up lanes, and he can make you pay. But if you don't, then he can just sit back there. So I thought we did a pretty nice job finding the balance."

"I think this team has a real love for each other. They have a real desire to be great. They're not hard to coach. They came ready. I loved our mentality. Saturday, we had a heartbreaking loss in a game that we felt like we should have won, and we came back Sunday and they were energized and ready to go Sunday night. Really were throughout the week. So I believe a lot in this team. I believe a lot in the capability, and that just pushes me to want to do everything I can to get these guys ready to play to prepare them. Because, like I told you guys last week, win or lose, coming to sit here, I know we have a good team in there, and I just want to help these guys. I want to help these guys feel that."

"I think this team will take a lot of momentum into this next game. This will be a big game for us, a big opportunity, especially when you look ahead at some of the bye weeks and opportunities here. Looking ahead to get some guys back healthy. After those bye weeks you start looking at how many young players are making big contributions for us. You start to get excited about the trajectory of this team, and we knew if we could right the ship right here in this middle part of the season, that we'd give ourselves a good damn chance. So we did it tonight, and hopefully we can do it again."

Photos from USC’s ugly 25-21 victory over Washington

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