MINNEAPOLIS -- On the field, Minnesota's fans rushed from their seats, flooding the turf and celebrating alongside the players in a scene that said it all, as the Gophers not only earned their first win over any power conference opponent this season but did it against No. 11-ranked USC in dramatic fashion Saturday night.
Meanwhile, in the bowels of Huntington Bank Stadium, perched on a cramped dais in a small media room with the walls seemingly closing in on his team's season, Trojans coach Lincoln Riley tried to spin the narrative forward as best he could.
But it was a hard sell this time.
Letting a fourth quarter lead slip away on the road at Michigan two weeks ago felt like a missed opportunity that could loom over USC's hopes to compete for a Big Ten championship or College Football Playoff berth. Absolutely blowing a win against a middling Minnesota team -- turning a 7-point lead while driving for more in the fourth quarter into a 24-17 loss -- almost makes that all moot.
The Gophers (3-3, 1-2 Big Ten) saved their season in a way Saturday night. The Trojans (3-2, 1-2) undercut theirs severely.
There's no point in thinking about conference championship potential in a league where Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State are all still undefeated, as is upstart Indiana.
And just five games in, the question being asked now isn’t so much whether USC can compete for a playoff berth — the Trojans dropped out of the AP top-25 with the loss — but, frankly, where exactly Riley has this program going at this point.
"It was a really close game and obviously came down to just inches right there at the end. We've had a couple of those. That's the frustrating thing for our team right now -- we're two plays away from probably being 5-0, but those plays happened and we've had opportunities to win those games," Riley said. "We've put ourselves in those positions, which is hard to do on the road against quality teams. But obviously we're frustrated that we haven't finished them off and we've got to close the gap, play a little bit better on any of the three sides. …
“Coaches, everybody, we need to be a little bit better because we've got the makings of a really good team."
RELATED: Full video and transcript from USC's postgame press conference
The Trojans do have the makings of a good team in a number of ways, as we opined last week in this space. But a lot of teams around the country have the "makings" of potentially being a good team -- the ones that are true contenders don't lose like this one did Saturday night.
The momentum was all with USC, building from the final minute of the second quarter when safety Kamari Ramsey stripped the ball from star running back Darius Taylor and Nate Clifton recovered it at the Trojans' 47 with 27 seconds left in the half.
Running back Woody Marks immediately took a short pass for 17 yards, and eventually USC would set up for a 49-yard field goal. Michael Lantz booted it through, only to have the referees say Minnesota had called timeout before the snap ... only to then have Alani Noa jump offsides and make it a 54-yard attempt. No problem, Lantz nailed that one too to tie the score at 10-10 heading into halftime.
USC's defense started the second half with a quick stop, and the combination of Marks and quarterback Miller Moss got the offense rolling for a 12-play, 91-yard drive capped by Marks' 1-yard touchdown run for a 17-10 lead.
The Trojans defense bent a little on the next Gophers drive but didn't break, stopping the hosts just outside of field goal range as Gavin Meyer batted down a third-down pass from the USC 37.
The ensuing punt would pin USC at its own 4, but again, the Trojans had all the momentum -- especially seemingly anytime Marks touched the ball as he rushed for a career-high 134 yards (6.7 per carry) and added 30 receiving yards.
He broke off runs of 20 and 14 yards early in the drive to get the Trojans moving, a personal foul on the Gophers helped, and quickly USC was at the Minnesota 35-yard line 5 minutes into the fourth quarter with a chance to perhaps put the game away with a double-digit lead against a Gophers team that had still managed only 10 points through three-plus quarters.
For it to go from that point to how it ended up is where not just the game but this entire season turned ...
On third-and-4, Riley saw a one-on-one matchup for wide receiver Duce Robinson that he liked and dialed up the pass play, but right tackle Mason Murphy's rough day would get worse as Jah Joyner blew past him with exceptional ease and hit Moss' arm as he threw. The ball fluttered a few yards into the hands of the Gophers' Devon Williams for a crushing interception.
Fans bemoaned that Riley had abandoned Marks and the rushing attack in that critical moment, when it arguably would have been four-down territory or at worst another long field goal try for Lantz, but he had no regrets afterward.
"Yeah, we had a great one-on-one matchup with Duce that has been pretty good for us, so yeah, we called it and we got to execute it," he said.
USC simply didn’t need the highest-upside play in that moment — it needed the smartest and safest play to keep the chains moving and at least protect what would have been a significant field goal.
Instead, Taylor promptly gashed USC for a 22-yard catch-and-run and a 19-yard rush on the next two plays, as Minnesota went 65 yards in 6 plays for the game-tying touchdown on a 5-yard keeper by quarterback Max Brosmer.
The momentum was gone, but the game wasn't yet.
USC took possession with 7:08 remaining and every chance to take the lead back, but the cracks in the foundation of this team continued to widen -- namely the unreliability of the offensive line.
Left tackle Elijah Paige was beat immediately to the inside, forcing Moss to get rid of the ball, but as it didn't get back to the line of scrimmage it was ruled intentional grounding, setting up a second-and-19.
On an eventual third-and-4, another questionable play-calling moment arose as Moss threw downfield to a well-covered Ja'Kobi Lane on what sure seemed like a low-percentage play when again needing just a few yards for a first down.
Riley was asked about this after the game, but he mistook the question to be about the earlier third-and-4 -- the Moss interception under duress -- so it's not clear if that was the desired intent of the play or just the read Moss chose.
Nonetheless, Riley was also asked if there were any decisions in general he lamented in that fourth quarter.
"Uhh, not off the top of my head right now," he said, again dismissing that the play-calling had anything to do with the end result.
Either way, Minnesota had all the momentum and would go 12 plays for 75 yards and another Brosmer rushing touchdown -- his third of the game -- to go up 24-17 with 59 seconds left.
Well, that's simplifying it. Initially, USC was credited with a goal-line stand on fourth-and-goal from the 1, but it was overturned on official review.
"I don't really have a vantage point on if it was or if he had the ball. You know, I'll trust that the review hopefully made the right decision there," Riley said.
The call can certainly be debated, especially as to whether Brosmer lost the football in the process of trying to get across the goal line or if there was enough evidence to overturn the initial ruling, but what cannot is that the Trojans gave this game away on both sides of the ball -- and with the aforementioned play-calling decisions.
Ultimately, the defense wasn't able to bail out USC this time. It was complicit with the rest of the collective breakdown.
That it needed to do so yet again is perhaps the bigger concern, as USC's 17 points matched the lowest output in Riley's three seasons.
A couple of big completions and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Minnesota got USC to the Gophers' 28 on its final drive, but with no timeouts and only 14 seconds on the clock, Moss tried to force a ball to Robinson in the end zone that was picked off to seal the Minnesota win -- and the Trojans' fourth quarter collapse.
Riley was chippy and defiant in the postgame press conference.
When defensive end Jamil Muhammad was asked if he thought Minnesota scored on that decisive fourth-and-goal, Riley excoriated the reporter.
"Don't ask him that. Don't ask him that. Next question. Who cares what he says on that? [You] want a player's opinion?! Let's ask a more professional question," Riley snipped.
When Riley was asked if he considered keeping a tight end or running back in to help offset Murphy's persistent blocking struggles on the right side, he responded with a curt "I don't know" as the press conference ended.
While the aforementioned protection breakdowns at two of the most pivotal moments of the game reinforced the frustrations with USC's offensive line play yet again, Riley countered the assessment.
"We moved the ball at will tonight. Again, you can't have those turnovers down there. To run the ball like we did, we protected the quarterback well for a large, large part of the night. We got good enough play out of the O-line to win," he said.
(The PFF stats actually back him up, as USC was marked for just 5 pressures allowed -- compared to 21 against Michigan and 15 against Wisconsin. The eye test says differently, but regardless, even if the bad moments are fewer they absolutely can't consistently come at the worst times. And the fact that Moss didn’t complete a single pass of 20 or more yards downfield speaks to how little time he has to operate in general, which is indisputable.)
As for Riley’s other point, USC finished with 3 turnovers, including a fumble from running back Quinten Joyner after a long gain inside Minnesota territory in the second quarter.
"I think all three of our turnovers tonight were in plus territory where we had good drives going. And again, those are times, especially when you've got a kicker like we do, man, those are points every single time you feel like when you get over there," Riley said. "Three drives ended in plus territory in a game like this where there weren't many possessions, I mean, it was massive."
It's a fair point -- albeit one was a desperation-heave and another could be attributed to play-calling -- but the what-if's don't change the what-is.
It wasn't just a bad loss, it was a perception-shifting loss. (Clearly in the eyes of AP voters.)
The last-minute defeat at Michigan could be spun into it being a learning experience for this team in its first true road game in a tough environment against the defending national champs, where USC was truly one big defensive bust away from probably coming out with a momentous win.
This, well ...
Road game or not, this one the Trojans simply had to win. Especially up 17-10 and driving in Minnesota territory in the fourth quarter with a kicker who had already hammered home a 54-yard field goal.
It's not that all of USC's goals are off the table. If the Trojans manage to upset undefeated Penn State in the Coliseum next week, sure, the CFP talk can absolutely resume -- even if the conference championship goals would still seem beyond reach -- and maybe that would quiet a lot of the other chatter.
But for now ...
The loudest questions aren't anymore about whether this team can go on a run and push for a playoff spot -- they're about Riley's late-game management, or how the Trojans are three years into this coaching regime with such a paper-thin offensive line that has almost no options at tackle even if the coaches did feel a change is needed at any point.
The tenor of this season seemed to shift sharply Saturday night, and where it goes from here hinges greatly on whether USC can upset Penn State next Saturday in the Coliseum.
If not, the reality is a 3-3 team that would be 1-3 in conference play, looking like a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten program three years into Riley's tenure with nothing tangible to indicate that anything will be much different anytime soon where it matters most (at the line of scrimmage).
On the outside, the questions mount and grow louder. Inside the program, USC is playing for its season this week.
"Shoot, we're ready to go. We're ready to go start preparing right now. So we're going to prepare like crazy, have a great week of practice, Coliseum is going to be rocking, we're going to be excited as hell to play," Riley said, resolute that his team is equipped to respond from Saturday's crushing collapse. "That's what we do."
