Lincoln Riley is a brilliant head coach with a first-rate football mind. Few, if any, men in the coaching business can so readily replicate 40-point performances on offense. The ease with which Riley creates high-scoring offenses is a testament to his talent as an assembler of elite offensive rosters and his ability to design plays for those rosters.
Yet, Riley’s brilliance as an offensive mind has not yet translated to a College Football Playoff semifinal victory, let alone a national championship. The main reason for this is his loyalty to Alex Grinch and the subsequent failure to get full accountability on the defensive side of the ball.
However, it’s not the only reason for Riley’s “almost but not quite” reality as a college head coach.
USC might have made the playoff last year if it had beaten Utah in Salt Lake City in October. That game was lost for many reasons, but one was that USC couldn’t run the ball with a 21-7 lead. USC isn’t running the ball well enough or continuously enough with multi-score leads. This has to change. USC has to throw to build a lead but then run to protect the lead.
Riley recently said — on Monday — that his offense isn’t protecting leads or controlling the clock well enough.
That might be narrowly true, but it’s not “the offense” which is failing. Riley himself is failing. Riley calls the plays. Riley should be running the ball on 2nd and 5 with a multi-score lead in the second half. Yet, against Colorado, he did not do that. He threw the ball on 2nd and 5 and then again on third down. USC should be running the ball on 2nd and 5 when it has a second-half lead.
Riley’s situational football has to be better. Remember: He went for it on 4th and 3 up by six points against Arizona State the week before, instead of kicking a field goal which would have created a nine-point (two-score) lead. Riley also threw the ball on 2nd and 3 with a second-half lead over ASU. He should be running the ball there, period.
Riley has to make better situational decisions. Handling Alex Grinch isn’t his only big problem — and failing — at USC.
We said a lot more on our latest USC YouTube show with Mark Rogers and Tim Prangley at The Voice of College Football:
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