STANFORD -- Lincoln Riley probably didn't intend to be this on-the-head in putting USC's win at Stanford in full perspective Saturday night. Or, then again, maybe he did.
Either way, there was no better way to frame it.
"I mean, just look at 12 months ago," Riley said, pausing and shrugging his shoulder. "Look at 12 months ago. This is a good Stanford team and a lot's changed."
It was almost exactly 12 months earlier -- literally one day shy of a calendar year -- that the Clay Helton Era effectively ended after Stanford pounded the Trojans, 42-28, in the Coliseum. Helton was of course fired two days later, setting in motion the process that ultimately landed Riley in Los Angeles.
Twelve months later, USC won at Stanford Stadium by a nearly identical 41-28 margin, but it wasn't just the score that reflected how polar opposite this program is a year later ...
It was an offense that scored touchdowns on its first five possessions without facing so much as a third down to build a 35-14 halftime lead. A year after hearing from coaches and players after each game how the "execution" just wasn't there again, fans were treated to an offense so well-orchestrated -- and executed -- that seemingly everything Riley drew up worked to perfection in that first half.
Quarterback Caleb Williams was 13-of-15 passing for 244 yards, 4 touchdowns and 0 interceptions before halftime while the rushing attack already had 122 yards and a touchdown with an average of 6.8 yards per carry.
As for why it seemed so smooth and effortless, well, the explanation is in the details of those five touchdowns ...
1. Caleb Williams fakes a handoff to Travis Dye moving to the left, then throws a quick jump pass over an approaching defender to the right to tight end Lake McRee for an "easy" 5-yard touchdown pass -- easy because star wide receivers Mario Williams and Jordan Addison were relentlessly blocking their man through the duration of the play to give McRee a clear path into the end zone.
"You've got to block. You've got to block. You won't get the ball if you don't block," Mario Williams said. "So just being able to play, just being able to play for the guy next to you is our motto -- just being able to play for your brother."
RELATED: First-and-10: The 10 most significant takeaways from USC's win at Stanford
2. A 22-yard Caleb Williams touchdown pass to Jordan Addison, in which Williams again sells the fake handoff left to Dye so well -- with help from right guard Justin Dedich and right tackle Jonah Monheim convincingly pulling to the left as well -- that two-thirds of the Stanford defense bites and takes a step toward that side of the field, setting up the intent of the play. Williams instead fires a quick strike to the right hash to Addison that requires four (let's call it 3.5) blocks to be perfectly executed to create the tunnel for the receiver to score.
This is what it looked like at the point of catch with Addison (No. 3) on the right hash ...
Mario Williams seals the outside, holding his block on cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly, while center Brett Neilon knows exactly who his responsibility is, running out to take safety Patrick Fields out of the play to the right of the lane they are setting up for Addison; left tackle Bobby Haskins sprints from the moment of the snap right to his spot to make sure safety Jonathan McGill can't close in from the left of that lane; and left guard Andrew Vorhees (who gets held up just a bit longer than planned getting off his initial block at the line) races over to cut off linebacker Jacob Mangum-Farrar, who in this case is already behind the play and not positioned to catch Addison even with Vorhees a split second late to his spot and unable to get the full block.
This is the play in full motion -- and it's a thing of beauty for anyone with even a faint appreciation for offensive play-calling.
"When I [saw] the play call, I was like, I've got to block for him and I've got to make sure he go score. So I made sure I got that one," Mario Williams said.
Said Addison: "Just trusting each other and trusting our coaches. They play everybody in the right position, so we just trust them every day, every week in practice and just put it all on the line for them."
3. The third touchdown is much simpler to explain. Addison -- the reigning Biletnikoff Award winner -- is just too fast, even for a preseason first-team All-Pac-12 corner like Kelly, while Caleb Williams throws a perfect strike downfield to hit Addison in stride on this simple post route. Addison does the rest, spinning out of a leg tackle to take it 75 yards. When a play-caller has elite talent like Williams and Addison, sometimes it doesn't require much creativity to find the end zone.
"This is what we've been working for all summer when the lights [were] off and nobody could see us," Addison said of his timing with Williams. "When we get our opportunity to put it out there on the field we're going to do it every time."
4. A 15-yard Caleb Williams to Mario Williams touchdown on a quick pass to the right that relies on two of the hallmarks of this offense -- the aforementioned elite athleticism (sometimes it just pays to get the top playmakers the ball with a little space to operate) and a commitment to wide receivers blocking downfield (Terrell Bynum in this case.) No further explanation needed.
5. And the fifth touchdown -- another hat tip to Riley here, as he signaled in an audible based on the blitz from the edge he detected from Stanford's alignment. In switching to a handoff to Dye, the running back found a biblical parting of the way in front of him as he ran completely untouched on a 27-yard touchdown up the middle.
"I didn't see nothing but the end zone," Dye said, laughing. "Justin [Dedich] and all those guys, they swept it on out and linebackers kind of overplayed a little bit and it was just a perfect storm. I really appreciate those guys."
As for how that audible came to be ...
"That was actually coach. We had another call, I looked over at him and he just checked it, so that was on Big Dog," Williams said, nodding to Riley in the postgame press conference.
"No, that was him," Riley said, drawing laughs.
"We had a different call on and we saw edge blitz from the right and Caleb made a good check, ran outside zone and Travis made a great -- I didn't really see it, but he clearly made a good cut or good read and just went off the right guard for a nice run," Neilon said in a separate interview.
The Trojans simply weren't operating on this level a year ago across the board.
Give Riley and his offensive staff a ton of credit here for getting this offense installed and implemented so quickly and, of course, for the ingenuity and design behind it all. There's a reason why Riley has consistently produced top 10, top 5 and even No. 1 overall national offenses.
"Coach Riley calls great plays, and he puts the best players in the best situations to make those plays," running back Austin Jones said, echoing his teammates. "And you know, as you can see, it's working."
"Lincoln being Lincoln," Mario Williams said. "He calls great plays, and we've just got to go out and execute. I think we did pretty good tonight."
That can't happen, though, without the collective buy-in that Riley has been so effusive about, even marveling at given the sheer number of new players that had to come together since the spring.
"If you just do your job, something special can happen like that first half," Dye said, summing up the mentality this team has embraced.
Of course, this kind of offense also can't happen without the wealth of talent Riley has assembled here in less than a year on the job.
Addison, the Pitt transfer, is very possibly the best receiver in college football (as the Biletnikoff Award voters would agree). Caleb Williams, who followed Riley from Oklahoma, will be a deserving mention in the Heisman Trophy discussions all season. Mario Williams, also from Oklahoma, is as talented as any "1B" wideout in the country, even though he doesn't have the body of work yet to show it.
Dye, the accomplished Oregon transfer, is maybe not the most explosive running back in college football or the biggest, but he just might be the most well-rounded and complete as an intelligent three-down back who relishes the opportunity to stick a physical block on a larger defender in pass protection.
And the veteran offensive line this staff inherited -- Vorhees, Neilon, Dedich, Monheim, co-left tackle Courtland Ford -- plus the addition of experienced Virginia transfer Bobby Haskins in that tandem at left tackle, whose value became even more evident with Ford leaving on a golf cart after the game with his ankle or foot wrapped, allows all of that elite talent to reach its individual and collective potential.
"I've been on some really good teams, and this is the best team I've ever been on. That's no disrespect to my past teams -- it's just the truth," said Dye, who played on a 12-2 Pac-12-championship, Rose Bowl-winning Oregon team in 2019. "... We have an unlimited ceiling."
"I don't think we've got no ceiling," Addison said on the other side of the postgame media room. "We've just got to keep moving forward."
So yeah, just taking in the offensive renaissance on display the last two weeks has been something to behold for Trojans fans who were so abjectly frustrated the last few years that they would have been temporarily pacified if the former regime had simply embraced going under center on third- and fourth-and-short situations.
How far things have come in 12 months, indeed.
The offense didn't keep its foot on the gas in the second half Saturday, and Riley was the first to acknowledge that.
"Didn't play very good, didn't play up to our standard offensively in the second half," he said. "Had some opportunities, had some good field position, didn't do a good job on third down. ... Still had a few too many mistakes like you're going to have the second game, but we found ways to win and separate here on the road, which is awesome. So I'm proud of these guys.
"We know we have a lot of work to do. Our best football is a long ways from where we're at right now."
That's the other point to consider -- the Trojans are just at the start of what they can ultimately be this season and they're already up to No. 7 in the AP poll.
That's especially true when it comes to the defense ...
Through 1.5 quarters Saturday, Stanford had 297 offensive yards, moving down the field at will against a USC defense that was always going to be a work in progress this year.
Remember, the 2021 Trojans delivered the worst defensive season on record in program history, statistically speaking. Riley and defensive coordinator Alex Grinch turned over a large percentage of the personnel on that side of the ball, but it's going to take time. It was always going to take time.
Is it a concern for a team (and fan base) that suddenly has very, very lofty aspirations for this season? Yes, absolutely. Better teams than Stanford will see the tape from Saturday and pick at the Trojans' vulnerabilities.
But is the defense already moving in the right direction from last season? Also yes.
Look at the physicality of the unit, the improved tackling and, obviously, the fact that it's produced 8 turnovers and 9 sacks through two games.
Grinch's entire defensive philosophy is built upon the principle of relentless effort and the belief that if USC wins the turnover battle, creating at least a plus-two margin on the defensive end each game, that it will translate to the desired overall success. It sure seems like his message has resonated through the roster.
USC is third in the country in averaging 4 turnovers forced per game (and first in the country in overall turnover margin at +4 per game) while also tied for third nationally in averaging 4.5 sacks a game through two weeks.
The Trojans ranked 46th in turnovers forced last year and tied for 72nd in turnover margin with a negative ratio overall. Meanwhile, they were tied for 96th at 1.75 sacks per game.
Where can the defense get better most quickly?
"I think the easiest fix is just that we're still making a few too many mental mistakes throughout the course of the game," Riley said. "We're not in a gap, we're not lined up, we're not playing the call the way that it's designed. Because I thought we did a pretty good job tackling, getting the ball out, we're straining to the ball really, really hard. There's a lot physical plays out there, but we've got to clean up the mental execution.
"Right now, we're giving up, in this game we gave up a few too many plays where we're not in the gap, and against a good offense like that you make it a lot easier on them than obviously you plan to."
But the clearest way to sum it all up -- the entirety of the program and where it's heading -- was that as Riley astutely referenced, regardless of specific intention, exactly 12 months ago the Trojans were at their nadir, rudderless and on the way to their worst season (4-8) in three decades.
Fans were so beaten down they didn't even have faith in the athletics administration -- one that had been in place for all of two years, that bore no responsibility for the failed hires of the last decade-plus, and that had given every indication that it had returned a needed professionalism and vision to the office -- that there was actual fear on message boards and social media that USC would make a lackluster hire like Jeff Fisher or Jack Del Rio.
Flash forward to the present, and the Trojans are led by Lincoln Riley with the trajectory pointing straight upward.
As Riley said, just look at 12 months ago -- a lot has changed, indeed.
"We've had some really good moments here over the first two games that I'm extremely excited about," Riley said. "We have a lot to clean up and a lot of consistency to find -- coaching-wise, playing-wise. We're just on our climb, we're on our journey."
And it's setting up to be quite the ride for this fan base.
