USC has now lost three of its last four games in the final minute -- in this case overtime, as No. 4-ranked Penn State prevailed 33-30 after rallying back from a 14-point deficit in the second half.

Missed opportunities have now become the storyline of the Trojans season, as they dropped to 3-3 overall, 1-3 in the Big Ten and further from the national conversation after being ranked No. 11 just a week ago.

RELATED: Full recap with reaction from coach Lincoln Riley, video clips and more

"It came down to the last play. Again, it hurts, obviously, to not be able to get this done. We've had obviously a few games like this where we've had chances to win right there at the end, and to not make the plays, not have some of the breaks bounce your way, it's a gut-punch. There's no doubt about it," coach Lincoln Riley said. "So we're very disappointed to not finish it off. I'm proud of the way that the guys fought, I'm proud of the way that the team played, gave ourselves a lot of opportunities to win it there in the end, so we've got some work to do. We definitely made some critical errors in some of these games that we haven't won where we've had opportunities to finish teams off."

Riley addressed his decision not to use his available timeouts on USC's final drive of regulation, which eventually ended with an interception on third-and-6 with the Trojans still outside of field goal range.

He also made clear he takes full responsibility for the Trojans' persistent struggles in closing out games.

Watch the full postgame press conference below, with Riley, quarterback Miller Moss and safety Kamari Ramsey, and scroll down for a complete transcript of their comments.

Opening comments ...

LR: "All right, hard-fought game, just a really difficult loss. There's really no way to sugarcoat that. Our guys fought their ass off from beginning to end. As a coach, you can't ask for anything more than the effort our guys put on the field. It's two good football teams going at it. It came down to the last play. Again, it hurts, obviously, to not be able to get this done. We've had obviously a few games like this where we've had chances to win right there at the end, and to not make the plays, not have some of the breaks bounce your way, it's a gut-punch. There's no doubt about it. So we're very disappointed to not finish it off. I'm proud of the way that the guys fought, I'm proud of the way that the team played, gave ourselves a lot of opportunities to win it there in the end, so we've got some work to do. We definitely made some critical errors in some of these games that we haven't won where we've had opportunities to finish teams off.

"That's something that we all got to do a better job of. We've got to identify it, we've got to coach it better and we've got to continue to progress as a team. We've got a united bunch of guys in that room that are hurting right now because they love playing the game with each other. I think you can tell that. They love playing the game for each other, for USC. That's why you see us play the way that we play. So, they're hurt, but we will absolutely rebound, we're excited about what's coming up and we understand the opportunities that are ahead for us. And we will be a hungry motivated football team to go back to work and obviously dive into the second half of this season."

What was the strategy on not using timeouts on the final drive of regulation?

LR: "Yeah, we talked about it a little bit. When we had the lost yardage play, I think it was the first down, we kind of at that point started to talk about, 'All right, do we need to use timeouts and stop the clock?' I think that was a second-and-12, if I remember right. We were talking about it, do we need to use timeouts and stop the clock there because all of sudden it's second-and-12. If you don't get anything there then it's third-and-12 and you just potentially bought them a series and we weren't in field goal range yet. We went back and forth on do we use them and stop the clock, or not? And we felt, honestly I felt so good about how Mike was hitting the ball that we said, 'You, know what' -- when we got to a third-and-6 there 'if we convert this we still got timeouts to maybe go one more shot and then obviously let him kick the field goal.' How well Mike was kicking it, I think, was the biggest reason I wanted to make sure it was the last possession."

Miller, how much does this loss hurt?

MM: "Yeah, shoot, they all hurt. This one especially was excruciating just in the manner that it happened. I think the flip side of that is we've got a really, really good locker room filled with really great people and really great coaches that's going to continue to stay together and go on a run this back half of the season. That's the No. 4 team in the country, so what does that make us?"

Kamari, with the game Tyler Warren had was there any thought to playing bracket defense?

KR: "That's a great question for Coach Lynn, but we had a great scheme, we had a great gameplan going into the game and I think he had a great game and he's a great player, made some great catches too. Just tip your hat off to him. But we had a good game plan -- we should have made plays and stopped him. But he made great plays himself, so tip your hat off to him."

Another game you're a couple of plays away, at what point does it fall on you?

LR: "It always falls to me. When have I ever [shirked] responsibility. I always take it. I'm the head coach. It's all my job. Believe me, there isn't nobody taking more responsibility than I am. I don't know where that line of questioning comes from. Yeah, I think it is -- it's the good and bad of it and it both exists. The reality is we've played the toughest schedule in the country the first six games, we've had a chance to win every single game. That's hard to do, to put yourself in position to win these games is frickin hard to do to begin with, so we're doing a lot of good. And I understand that that good's not going to get seen by the outside right now because they're going to focus on the record and the fact that we've lost three games on the last play, and I understand it. That's part of it. We all understood this when signed up for big boy football, so I get it. We've got to do a better job at the end of games, I have to do a better job, our coaches, our players, because we're doing too many good things to put us in situations where we have the lead and we can win, but we gotta get paid off for it. We gotta be able to finish, and it all falls on my shoulders at the end. That's part of why they call me head coach."

What's preventing you guys from getting that done?

LR: "I think it's all sides. I think you could look at all sides. We've had opportunities on offense, we've had opportunities on defense. Offense had the ball obviously with a chance to go score with 2 minutes and change and all the timeouts. Defensively, we got them to two fourth-and-longs on the series before where you like your chances on both of those and they make two kind of crazy plays. So we've all had our chances. We all own in it. We've got to coach better, we've got to play better offense, we've got to play better defense in those moments."

Is there anything the last two losses that you reflect on and feel you could have done better as a head coach?

LR: "Oh, 100 percent, yeah. Everything. Everything. Everything that we do, again, ultimately falls on my shoulders, so I promise you I don't sweep any of the bad or anything that hasn't gone our way under the rug. We're going to go fight like we always do to improve, to continue to grow. I've got to continue to get better, I own that, and that's part of it. Yeah, we've got to all be better, and that starts with me."

What's the moment in this game you'll be thinking about later tonight?

LR: "Man, we do this for a living, like this is our life. I didn't see my kids four nights this week. This is what we do. I think about this every second and when I go to sleep I dream of it and I wake up thinking about it. So, I'll think about all of it. The thing I'm not going to do, and our team's not going to do, is I'm not going to let the things we have to get better or the things that didn't go our way shield the great things that are happening in that locker room, on this defense, on this offense and in this program. I am not going to let that happen, personally, because I've been in this long enough, man -- everybody's going to hit their adversity, that's part of it, and you either stand up and fight or you bow down. And I'm not about to bow down."

You rotated a lot more on defense, what went into that?

LR: "We didn't do it enough against Minnesota. We felt like that was something that we needed to be better at, we needed to trust some of these young guys, and they've also given us some reasons to want to trust them. You saw some young guys go in there and make some big-time plays in a big ballgame, so obviously developing that depth is going to be important with the stretch we have and the stretch we've got ahead of us."

What were they able to do with Tyler Warren that was hard to stop?

LR: "Yeah, like Kamari said, listen, he's a great player. We knew he was going to be a challenge coming in. We had a couple coverage busts on him, and I think that's the thing we'll look back on. When you play a really good player like that, you just want to make him earn it, right? If they make a play, you want it to be like, hey, we were in coverage, we were in the right spot, listen, the guy made a play. But we gave him a couple that we didn't [play well] and that's probably the thing that hurts the most."

Penn State players tried to plant their flag on the USC logo, what's your reaction?

LR: "I don't get caught up in all that. I mean, that's all stuff outside the game. We're very proud of our program, we don't take a backseat to anybody and that's all I would say."