Lincoln Riley used only three words to deflect a question about whether he still believes defensive coordinator Alex Grinch is the right man to turn around USC's defensive deficiencies.

"Yes, I do," he said.

Riley also disagreed with a reporter's assessment that despite the boosts in talent and depth across the defense this year, the struggles look the same.

"Yeah, it's not really the same issues, though. I don't agree with it," he said. "I feel like even right now when something doesn't go our way -- we're five games in, we're taking that litmus test right now -- when something doesn't go our way it doesn't look like last year. Not to the trained eye, not to a coach.

"Now, we've still got plenty to correct and there's two things today that absolutely when we weren't good killed us, and that was we didn't do a good job of keeping the quarterback in the pocket ... and then listen, to give a quarterback confidence there's nothing like being able to throw a 7-yard hitch route out there and there was a couple of those that went 30-40 plus. The one went longer than that. So, you've got to own those things, we have to be better at them. Those are plays that we didn't make, but no, it doesn't look like last year."

That is a matter of debate.

As we do each week, we combed through the film and broke down every aspect of the Trojans' performance in the weekly First-and-10 -- the 10 most significant takeaways from USC's play in the 48-41 win at Colorado.

After last week’s far-from-perfect showing at Arizona State, I wrote about the idea that Caleb Williams can’t really afford to have off-games for the Trojans to remain successful. “Off-game” in this context does not refer to an objectively poor performance, of course -- just one that’s short of the extraordinarily high bar that Williams sets for himself with his sustained brilliance on the field. Against Colorado, Williams got back to his best, and it was a good thing he did because the Trojans very well could have let this game slip away had he been anything less.

Williams didn’t necessarily have his best game on Saturday, throwing his first interception of the year after over-estimating his own arm strength and missing a couple of key throws elsewise, but for the most part USC’s signal caller was nothing short of elite as he effortlessly carved up the Colorado defense to the tune of 403 yards and 6 touchdowns while completing 30 of 40 passes. He was sensational both within structure and on his creative escapades outside of the pocket, consistently making the right reads and delivering the football with timing, accuracy and velocity.

There were a bevy of highlight-reel plays made by the Trojans quarterback on the day, but my favorite was his touchdown pass to Dorian Singer, a gorgeous example of keeping cool under pressure and executing from the pocket within structure.

From the Buffs’ 10-yard line, Williams took the snap and patiently backpedaled as a free rusher barreled into his face, scanning through his reads on a noticeably shortened internal clock. Right as the defender was about to make contact, Williams effortlessly fired a rocket to Singer with perfect placement as the receiver crossed along the front line of the end zone for a score. We all know plenty well how electrifying Williams is out of structure, but it’s his ability to execute within it as well that truly makes him special. Not many quarterbacks could have gotten to that throw and made it in the context of the pressure he faced on that snap.

With all of that said, the underlying point remains that this USC team ended up wholly reliant on Williams’ brilliance over the course of the day to win this game. Had he just managed 5 touchdowns on the night instead of 6 -- the most anyone has thrown for this year, for the record -- the Trojans might have been doomed. Given the strength of the Trojans’ rushing attack and the talent they now have on defense, it’s a real problem that this remains the case. Williams is certainly good enough on his own to carry this team to many wins, but he can’t win them all on his own. Until this team can start straightening itself out elsewhere, it will live and die on the strength of his performances -- and that’s no recipe for championship football.

The Arizona State game raised a host of problems to me about how the Trojans are managing themselves on both sides of the ball, and I found many of those concerns reinforced further thanks to what we saw on Saturday. Foremost among these is the offense’s reluctance to lean into the run game when holding leads heading into the second half -- an issue that bit the Trojans last week and almost cost them the game against Colorado.

MarShawn Lloyd once again had a brilliant first-half performance, rushing for 72 yards and a score on 9 carries. With the Trojans up 34-14 at the half and their star runner playing at such a high level, it would have been a no-brainer to up his usage (as well as that of the team’s other backs) on the ground, allowing the Trojans to slowly bleed out clock and minimize Colorado’s opportunities to generate scoring drives. Much like previous cases when we’ve seen this scenario, however, Lincoln Riley flatly refused to do so, handing the ball off just 6 more times for the remainder of the contest. That approach looks great when your passing offense scores on every drive and blasts open the deficit to an unconquerable margin, but more often than not things won’t quite go that way. You’ll be forced to punt here or there, and there might be a turnover or two at any given point when you continue to force the ball down the field against an increasingly aggressive defense. And when that happens, you give the opposing offense a lot more possessions in a far shorter span, allowing them to build momentum while your defense slowly but surely tires out. That’s more or less exactly what happened in this contest, as the Trojans’ stubborn determination to keep the car in sport mode led to far too many possessions for Colorado against an increasingly worn-down USC defense.

The defense had sincerely played a strong first half despite the occasional bad lapse, but as the second half wore on, the same mistakes we saw more sparingly early on increased in both multitude and magnitude, until the whole thing came tumbling down to the tune of 27 second-half points for the Buffaloes. The defense’s problems are numerous and significant on their own, but it’s absolutely indefensible for the offensive gameplan to put the defense in the worst position possible in a context when the game should already be in hand.

It would be one thing if this was a one-time occurrence, but what troubles me is the fact that it isn’t. The same issue cropped up last week, driving me to raise it here then, and it was a theme in multiple games last year as well, including the Cotton Bowl collapse and the midseason contest against Utah. I don’t know what Riley’s reasoning is for such an approach, and I really would like to think it’s anything but an opportunity to stat-pad for the passing offense. Whatever it is, it doesn’t make sense and it probably won’t be conducive to winning games for this team down the stretch. I'm left with very significant concerns on this matter, and I’ll be watching carefully to see if the Trojans finally start letting their rushing attack play a bigger role in closing out games.

One of the biggest concerns on the offensive side of the ball to date has been center Justin Dedich’s persistent struggles snapping the ball. In every game so far, I’ve counted the sixth-year senior as having delivered at least two bad snaps. The misses have been all over the place; some too high, some too low and some simply not coming at the right time at all.

The Trojans had already given up a turnover thanks to a bad snap earlier in the season and almost faced another early in the game against Colorado. On a third-and-10, Dedich nearly sailed the ball straight over Williams’ head for what could have been a disastrous loss of yardage and change of possession. Luckily, Williams somehow managed to corral the errant snap and secure it in his grasp, but doing so killed the down on the spot, forcing the Trojans to punt on the ensuing fourth down. Trojans fans are all too familiar with the reality of just how disastrous inconsistent snapping can be for an offense if they remember the 2018 season at all. The snap should pretty much be the only link in the chain of a play call that you should take for granted every single time; there is really no room for error to be had there. Through five games, Dedich has continuously made glaring mistakes, which have by now cost the team a handful of totally wasted downs. He simply has to improve here; if he doesn’t, the consequences down the line will almost certainly be most costly.

The shape of USC’s receiving corps really seemed to solidify Saturday, with a clearer pecking order emerging after weeks of scattershot target distribution. It was starting to look like Brenden Rice and Tahj Washington would take over as the Trojans' top two receivers, and that seemed to become further entrenched in this contest as the duo led the way once again in all receiving categories.

Rice seems to have firmly taken control of the No. 1 X-receiver role, serving as the alpha on the outside capable of winning as the primary option on a consistent basis. His size and athleticism have always been special, but the refinement of his route-running and the marked improvement of his hands have turned him into a straight-up star. He was excellent for the second straight week, recording 5 receptions for 81 yards and 2 touchdowns. What’s most exciting about Rice is his explosive ability for a man of his size; just watch both of his touchdowns from this contest.

On the first, he’s able to turn his hips and burst up the field to turn a short 5-yard out route into a 26-yard score, absolutely rocketing out of the catch point to break a tackle and outrace every defender to the end zone.

On his latter touchdown, Rice demonstrated the value of that explosion as a route-runner, creating an unholy amount of separation on the goal-line slant despite having the corner right in his face.

His sustained production and the continued faith Caleb Williams shows in him are strong indicators that he’ll remain USC’s true No. 1 going forward. With that said, don’t be surprised at all if Tahj Washington ends up right there with him statistically by the end of the year.

Though Washington has consistently seen fewer targets than Rice, he’s taken those targets in pretty much every situation possible and routinely made the most of them. The diminutive speedster has reached a point in his development where he has a very strong grasp of all the little things along with his dynamic athletic ability. Washington runs very good routes, shows great hands for such a small receiver and demonstrates a fantastic feel for how to manipulate the space around him (he’s an impressive blocker as well!). That varied skillset lets the coaching staff deploy Washington in any number of ways, whether that involves getting the ball in his hands at the line of scrimmage and letting him get to work, asking him to win over the middle with his route running, or just having him blaze downfield to win deep.

He did a fantastic job of adjusting on the fly during a scramble drill to get open for a catch on his 71-yard touchdown Saturday, proceeding to carve his way through the CU defense for the remaining 40 yards (and accelerating to a speed of 21.1 MPH while he did it -- the third-fastest speed recorded in CFB last weekend).

Washington’s versatility and dynamism make him a perfect slot receiver for this offense, and he’ll certainly continue to be one of its most prominent contributors as the weeks go by. So far, he leads the team with 18 catches for 395 yards and 5 touchdowns, while Rice is right there with 17-338-7.

Elsewhere on the depth chart, Dorian Singer and Michael Jackson III had nice performances on limited targets, while Mario Williams finally had a get-right game as he hauled in 3 receptions for 53 yards and a score, turning in a badly-needed drop-free performance. There might be games where any of those guys (or Zachariah Branch, once he returns from injury) serves as the primary target, but it seems that Rice and Washington will lead the way for the most part.

The USC defense has persistently struggled to contain mobile quarterbacks, and that was the case once again Saturday as it allowed Shedeur Sanders to basically tilt the momentum of this game back in Colorado’s favor through the damage he did with his legs. That shift really began in the closing seconds of the first half, with Colorado facing a second-and-1 from the USC 25. Sanders dropped back to pass but instead found a huge swath of green grass up the middle for a 25-yard touchdown run.

Rewatching that play, I tried to figure out how he could have been allowed to run so freely; it turned out that either Christian Roland-Wallace or Raesjon Davis blew an assignment in the middle of the field, with both players following the offensive motion into the right-side flat and leaving the middle vacated. It seemed upon review that similar problems hurt the Trojans on quarterback scrambles elsewhere in the game as well, with players apparently misunderstanding or misplaying their assignments. The obvious answer for addressing the quarterback scramble is assigning a spy, something that Alex Grinch did at multiple points in this game to solid effect. However, if you aren’t going to spy -- as the Trojans often opted not to do -- keeping the quarterback scramble contained relies upon disciplined adherence to assignment rules, from both the players on the front and in coverage. This is where the Trojans really appeared to struggle, in large part due to the nature of how Grinch wants his front seven to play.

The hyper-aggressive, movement-oriented nature of his fronts create the possibility for potential “leaks” to spring open at the line of scrimmage if each of the players isn’t handling their gap assignment almost perfectly. When that happens, all it takes is the quarterback noticing for a sizable rushing opportunity to emerge. What was truly worrisome was the fact that the Trojans defense didn’t seem to adjust or get better in any way at containing Sanders after the problem emerged; in fact, things only got worse as Sanders gained 76 yards on the ground (losing 26 on lost sack yardage for a net rushing of 50). The scheme didn’t seem to change at all, which shouldn’t surprise anybody at this point despite all the questions that should raise. The most concerning aspect, however, was that it didn’t even seem as though the players on the field had been told to account for the scramble more carefully or to adjust their reads accordingly; they kept on doing the same thing down after down, no matter how many times it bit them.

I have no idea what to make of what I saw in that regard over the course of the game. The team obviously had the personnel necessary to make some adjustments to counter – for whatever reason it just chose to continue bashing its heads into the wall. As I’ll get into later, that seems to be a theme across the board on the defensive side of the ball.