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With just three weeks left in the college football season, Lincoln Riley finds himself in a place he hasn’t been since his first year at USC. His Trojans are still within reach of the College Football Playoff in mid-November. Their fate is still in their hands: Win out from here, and USC should be in the CFP for the first time.
The stakes are incredibly high. And Riley isn’t hiding that fact from his team as it prepares to face No. 21 Iowa Saturday. In fact, he says, he wants them to “embrace” the opportunity at hand.
“This game coming up this weekend, it’s not the same. It’s just not,” Riley said. “The more you win, the more important these become and the bigger the opportunities become. So our team is very well aware of that.”
Pressure hasn’t always brought out the best in Riley’s teams at USC. Last season, the Trojans blew five fourth-quarter leads and lost five of their last seven games in devastating fashion down the stretch. In 2023, they dropped four of five to close out the regular season. Even the 2022 run ended on a sour note in the Pac-12 title game after USC lost a second time to Utah, this time with a playoff berth on the line.
The path ahead isn’t exactly smooth this season, either. Iowa boasts one of the nation’s best defenses and a ball-control style different from any team USC has faced so far. Lane Kiffin was USC’s coach when the Trojans last won on the road at Oregon (in 2011) — they’ve lost four straight there since. Even UCLA, in the midst of a strange season, is capable of playing spoiler in their rivalry matchup.
It’s a delicate balance for any coach to strike at such a critical time of the season, emphasizing the larger stakes at hand while also keeping his team focused on the task ahead. But it’s a tightrope that Riley walked this week.
“I think the biggest thing is just being where your feet are, being in the moment, not getting too far down the road,” quarterback Jayden Maiava said this week. “Just focus on what’s happening right now.”
Here’s what you should watch when No. 17 USC takes on No. 21 Iowa on Saturday:
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Ball-control battle
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Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz is the longest-tenured coach in all of college football, having led the Hawkeyes for the last 26 seasons. And over that time, his offensive philosophy has remained decidedly old school.
Iowa is all about controlling the ball, grinding the clock and wearing down opposing defenses. The Hawkeyes rank 133rd of 136 teams nationally in passing yards per game. This is not, by any measure, an explosive offense.
But it is a hyper-efficient one, and one that knows its identity. Iowa’s goal, week in and week out, is to keep opposing offenses off the field entirely. That’s especially important against USC’s offense, which can score at any moment.
“They’re OK with going first, second and third down, all the way down the field,” defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn said. “It’s going to keep our offense off the field, and it’s going to wear us down. So from our standpoint, you’ve got to get [tackles for a loss] and you need to do something to get them behind the chains. You can’t just live in the third-and-short range all game.”
USC has struggled to slow down other run-heavy offenses this season. It gave up 306 yards and three touchdowns on the ground to Notre Dame. Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern all also found success running on USC’s defense.
Just two Big Ten teams — Indiana and Rutgers — lean on the run more than Iowa.
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QBs on the run
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Both quarterbacks in this game can run the ball if called upon. But only Iowa has made its quarterback’s ground game a featured part of the offense.
Mark Gronowski has not reinvigorated Iowa’s passing attack like some thought he would when he transferred from Football Championship Series powerhouse South Dakota State. He’s averaging just 5.4 yards per attempt this season. Gronowski has, however, been a weapon on the ground — and especially in the red zone.
Gronowski has 12 rushing touchdowns this season, second-most scores of any player in the Big Ten. That’s twice as many rushing scores as Maiava, who actually leads the Trojans’ offense in that category.
“He’s big,” Lynn said. “He runs hard. They use him more in the run game as far as QB-designed runs than teams we’ve played in the past.”
Maiava can run, too, if need be. He’s been more willing to take off of late, with rushing scores in each of his last two games. And if it’s raining Saturday, USC might need to lean on his legs more than usual.
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Let the rain fall down (again)
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It rarely rains on game day at the Coliseum, but that seems like a certainty Saturday, with heavy showers in the forecast all weekend.
USC should be used to the inclement weather by now. It has already weathered the rain on two road trips, including an hours-long lightning delay at Purdue. Rain is also in the forecast for next week’s road game at Oregon.
Bad weather would seemingly favor Iowa’s ground-heavy approach, but Riley didn’t seem worried about having to change his offense.
“Unless it’s just a complete downpour,” Riley said, “we feel like we can function very close to normally.”
The post Lincoln Riley urges USC players to embrace pressure during high-stakes game against Iowa appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
