Lincoln Riley discusses USC's 30-27 overtime Alamo Bowl loss to TCU

1 week ago 2

On Tuesday night, USC closed out its 2025 season with a heartbreaking 30-27 overtime loss to TCU in the Alamo Bowl. With the defeat, the Trojans finished their 2025 campaign with a record of 9-4.

Following the game, head coach Lincoln Riley discussed the team's loss. Here are some of the highlights of what he had to say:

On his team's performance

"I give our team a lot of credit," Riley said. "I think anybody that watched us play tonight, our guys battled like crazy. They really wanted to win this game. They wanted to win it for each other. Fought. Obviously did a lot of good things to put ourselves in position to win it, but we -- at the end of the day we had to kick too many field goals, and they scored touchdowns in the red zone when we didn't, and that was really the tale of the game.

"Disappointed for our one-game season here to not win this one, but obviously we're excited about what's ahead and appreciative to all the guys that have been apart of this whole season and then the guys that were part of the game here tonight that played their last game as Trojans."

On the final play of the game

"I thought [interim defensive coordinator Eric Henderson] made a really nice call," Riley said. "We missed a couple of tackles in just a very inopportune time. Give the guy credit from TCU. Made a hell of a run, but, you know, wasn't a lot of times this year that we missed multiple tackles on a play. And again, it just happened in kind of the worst time possible when we really had a great call and forced them to check down. We did everything right defensively to put them in that position and we just didn't finish the play."

On Eric Henderson stepping in as interim defensive coordinator and D'Anton Lynn's abrupt departure

"Yeah, Henny did a great job," Riley said. "The staff rallied around him. There was a lot of energy with the guys.

"The other part of it I'm not going to share details on."

On hiring USC's next defensive coordinator

"I think for us right now the opportunity to make a hire, to continue to make us better and to go from being a very good defense to being a great defense is the goal," Riley said. "We have the personnel to do it. We're on an upward trend.There's going to be a lot of interest in this job. This will bean extremely, extremely coveted job. I can already tell by the nature of what my phone has been like the last couple of days.

"Our ability to go get great people to bring into our program to help make us better has just gotten higher and higher. I can already tell that with this. So, yeah, it will be a fun process to go through, and I definitely don't want to press reset, because I think we've made a lot of improvement and we've got a hell of a defensive staff in there, and their ability to rally on short notice tonight I think was evident.

"I'm excited about the process, and I think it's going to make us better. I know it will. So we'll wake up tomorrow morning, and we'll get on it."

On quarterback Jayden Maiava's performance this season

"[Maiava has] obviously grown a lot, but there's still going to be so much more growth left," Riley said. "Yeah, I'm proud of the progress that he's made, but we know in that room what the standards are both for us as a staff and at this school. So we're going to continue to strive to get there with all the guys in the [quarterback] room.

"I love the room. Really enjoy coaching Jayden.He's gotten a lot better, and we'll be looking forward to make a jump with him and the entire room going into next year."

Reflecting on this year's team and moving forward

"It's been a great group," Riley said. "Been a lot of fun to coach. Been a lot of great memories throughout the year, and I think the locker room right now, it's sad to see a lot of these guys go and also, again, there's just so many guys, especially tonight with all the guys that got to play, there's a real sense of purpose in that locker room right now. We'll be excited to get back to work."

On the future outlook of the program

"I really believe a window here has opened up that's taken a lot of effort by a lot of people, a lot of commitment by a lot of people," Riley said. " Four fun, but really challenging years to get it open, and it's open now.

"We all feel that, all of us that are fortunate enough to be able to come back here next year, because it's not our right, coaching or playing. Working at USC is not anybody's right. It's a privilege. Those of us that have the privilege to be able to come back, we know what our job is. It's to make all the efforts of all those people the last four years worth it. That's what we're going to do."

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lincoln Riley discusses USC football's 30-27 Alamo Bowl loss to TCU

Read Entire Article