LOS ANGELES — The joyful roars from the adjacent Penn State locker room boomed through the LA Coliseum’s thin walls on Saturday evening as a throng of reporters waited for USC coach Lincoln Riley to address another painful loss.
“We own LA!” shouted one of the victorious Nittany Lions.
“LA is our city!” a Penn State teammate howled in response.
When Riley came to the podium a few minutes later, he made little effort to hide his frustration over what he described as a “really difficult loss.” USC fell to the nation’s fourth-ranked team 33-30 in overtime despite building a two-touchdown halftime lead, opening a seven-point fourth-quarter lead and driving into Penn State territory with a chance to win the game in the final minutes of regulation.
The most recent second-half collapse stung all the more for USC because it marked the Trojans’ third one-score loss of the season. They previously suffered two excruciating Big Ten road setbacks, surrendering a go-ahead last-minute touchdown at Michigan on Sept. 21 and squandering a late seven-point lead at Minnesota two weeks later.
“The reality is we’ve played the toughest schedule in the country the first six games and we’ve had a chance to win every single game,” Riley said. “That’s hard to do. To put yourself in the position to win these games is friggin’ hard to do.
“I understand that good is not going to be seen by the outside world right now because they’re going to focus on our record and the fact that we’ve lost three games on the last play. I understand it. That’s part of it. We all knew this when we signed up for big-boy football. We’ve got to do a better job at the end of games. I have to do a better job, our coaches, our players. Because we’re doing too many good things to put ourselves in situations where we have the lead…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/for-lincoln-riley-uscs-loss-to-penn-state-is-just-the-latest-disappointment-in-a-string-of-them-it-always-falls-on-me-022442173.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-10-13 02:24:42
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