SOUTH BEND, Indiana -- Many worried some sort of reckoning was coming for these Trojans -- but not like this.
If this wasn't all too real, it would have been hard to believe -- an over-the-top, overwrought script from some overzealous screenwriter straight off the picket lines shaking off the creative rust.
Sure, the star Heisman-winning quarterback who had thrown just 1 interception all season and just 6 in his year and a half at USC would toss 3 of the worst picks of his life in the first half Saturday night.
Sure, USC's beleaguered defense would finally deliver big in allowing just 251 yards (170.3 below its previous per-game average), but -- PLOT TWIST -- it would be the Trojans' prolific offense that wouldn't show up this time, with a season-low 302 yards (221.3 less than its per-game average) while scoring 31 points below its mean.
If that's not enough to oversell the point that this was the nadir of this team's narrative arc, how about a comedy of errors at the end to punctuate it in the form of a 99-yard kickoff return touchdown for Notre Dame, a fumble return for touchdown by the Irish and then two plays later another fumble from the Trojans for good measure?
Yet, it was all too real.
Forget either loss to Utah last year. Somehow, even move aside the Cotton Bowl collapse against Tulane.
The worst loss of the Lincoln Riley Era came Saturday night in South Bend, as No. 21-ranked Notre Dame -- fresh off two losses in its last three games -- dominated a No. 10-ranked, unbeaten Trojans team every which way from start to finish in a 48-20 defeat that not only has cast doubt on the potential of this USC season but sent the fan base spiraling with serious concerns about what will happen to this program in the Big Ten in the coming years.
After the game, Riley tried to ward off the panic and reinstate confidence.
"I still very much believe in this football team -- 1,000 percent," Riley said. "The good that you see from this football team is good enough to beat anybody, but we obviously know we've got to put it together and put it together quickly to get our best and to get it from all three sides and be able to rise together. And we've got a great opportunity to do it. Listen, I reminded the team and will remind everybody, we're undefeated in this conference right now. We play in right now what I think is the best conference in college football top to bottom and every opportunity that we want is waiting for us."
RELATED: Everything Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams said after USC's 48-20 loss at Notre Dame | Watch the postgame press conference | PFF grades and snap counts for the Trojans vs. Notre Dame
Also waiting for the now-No. 18 Trojans (6-1, 4-0 Pac-12) this week is a No. 14 Utah team that beat them twice last season, followed two weeks later by a No. 5 Washington team that looks to be a legitimate College Football Playoff contender, followed immediately by a road game at Oregon against a No. 9 Ducks team that dueled those Huskies to the finish Saturday, followed by rival UCLA and its better-than-expected No. 25-ranked squad.
Riley was resolute, though, that this season isn't about to slip away from the Trojans despite an unraveling offensive line that gave up 6 sacks and a whopping 34 pressures, per PFF. (To put that in context, USC hadn't given up more than 18 pressures in any other game this season, despite the line starting to show major cracks in recent weeks.)
"This group is more than capable. Now we've got to go do it," Riley said of his team. "We've got to go make the corrections. We've got to go fix the things that we gotta fix. We gotta coach and play better. But is it in our power? Is it something we're capable of? I believe it to my core and we're going to go fight our ass off to get it done."
