Lincoln Riley talks big-picture perspective after last-second loss to Utah

Just a little more than a week ago, USC was a top-10, undefeated team with Pac-12 championship and College Football Playoff aspirations.

Now?

The Trojans continued their tumble to No. 24 in the AP poll after taking a second straight loss Saturday night in the Coliseum, falling 34-32 on a field goal in the final seconds to familiar disrupter Utah.

The USC offense fell flat once again, while the defense made unheralded former walk-on QB Bryson Barnes look like he was indeed Cam Rising for most of the night.

Now, USC is 6-2 (4-1 in the Pac-12) with its two toughest games still ahead in the next three weeks. There is no more CFP talk, no more Heisman Trophy debate for Caleb Williams -- only an uphill path to the Pac-12 title game that seems hard to fathom after these last two (or five) performances.

"We've got to play better to play up to our capability, but I still know that there's a lot out there for this team, even though some people will count us out. That's OK," coach Lincoln Riley said afterward.

RELATED: Watch the full postgame press conference and read a full transcript of everything Lincoln Riley said after the loss to Utah | Join the postgame discussion on our Trojan Talk board

What could have been Saturday night, though. Let's start there ...

USC scored two quick touchdowns to go up 14-7 midway through the first quarter ... and then didn't score another offensive touchdown until the final 2 minutes.

In between, Utah (6-2, 4-1) scored 21 straight points to go up 28-14 with 3:28 left in the third quarter on the second touchdown reception of the game for do-it-all safety/running back/uncoverable receiving threat Sione Vaki.

The Trojans started to find some embers of offensive life on the ensuing drive before settling for a 44-yard Denis Lynch field goal.

As USC wasn't going to be able to kick its way back into a lead, it started to feel like the game (and season, to a degree) were on life support at that point.

That's when junior safety Calen Bullock delivered a shock to the system for the Trojans in the way of a 30-yard interception return for touchdown to cut Utah's lead to 28-23 with 13:28 left to play.

It was the one mistake Barnes made. The so-called game manager -- filling in for the dynamic Rising, who is being shut down for the season while needing more time to rehab from offseason ACL surgery -- had thrown just 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions over four games before passing for 235 yards and 3 touchdowns Saturday night while rushing for 57 yards and another score.

But on this throw, he was short and misguided as Bullock was waiting to jump the route and take it to the house.

Riley opted to go for a two-point conversion, which failed, leaving the score 28-23 with a quarter to play. The teams traded short field goals to keep the margin at 5 points, with Riley showing faith in his much-maligned defense by opting for a 36-yard Lynch field goal on fourth-and-15 with just 3:03 remaining and no guarantee his team would get the ball back.

Incredibly, the Trojans defense delivered the needed three-and-out, though, and suddenly a partially filled Coliseum was roaring back to life as freshman phenom Zachariah Branch returned the ensuring punt 61 yards to the Utah 11.

On the next play, Williams took it in himself for the touchdown to put USC in the lead, 32-31, as the Trojans again missed the two-point conversion.

There was just the matter of the remaining 1:46 on the clock ...

Could the Trojans defense end up the story of the night in the biggest moment of the season?

Yeah, it sure could have if not for defensive tackle Bear Alexander's 15-yard targeting penalty — on helmet-to-helmet contact on Barnes at the end of the play — as USC had stopped the Utes a yard short of the sticks on third-and-9 deep in their own territory. Instead, it was suddenly first-and-10 from their 49.

"We had a 15-yard penalty with all the momentum in the world," Riley said. "... I mean, I thought we were in great calls. I thought we had a ton of momentum. Bear's been an awesome player for us, and he was really broken up about the penalty because that was the one that really gave them [some] life -- you had them backed up and the pass rush was starting to get home, we were covering them pretty well, felt like we were in great shape. They had, what, a 4 or 5-yard play and all of a sudden it turns into a first down and a 20-yard play."

Utah later converted a fourth-and-1 from the USC 42 on a 2-yard Ja'Quinden Jackson run, but time and opportunities were dwindling. There was 16 seconds left when the Utes snapped the ball on second-and-15 from the 45, the Trojans just needed a couple more stops ...

Except Barnes took that snap for a 26-yard scramble -- the same kind of back-breaking quarterback run that has felled so many otherwise promising defensive series for this team. It was almost too fitting that the USC's defense’s chance to steal the spotlight came undone in such familiar fashion.

Barnes' run took the Utes to the 19, they stopped the clock with 3 seconds left after positioning the spot of the ball and Cole Becker drilled home the game-winning 38-yard field goal to end it.

Crushing.

Not only to what would have been a heck of a storyline but to what this season could have been as well.

"First time I've come into this room not with a win, so definitely not a feeling that I want to get used to," Riley said, as music blared through the walls into the postgame press conference from the nearby Utah locker room. "Ah man, as gut-wrenching a defeat as I can remember in my career. Hate it for the guys in there. We fought our tails off. We fought so hard. ...

"Locker room's pretty torn up right now, as it should be. We've had two tough losses in a row -- not obviously how any of us scripted this. But you can't script it -- it's college football. It comes down to little things here and there, and we haven't quite played clean enough here the last couple of weeks to take advantage of it."

USC chose not to make any players available to media for postgame interviews -- only Riley, but he had a lot to say.

He again wanted to reiterate that the Trojans are still very alive in the Pac-12 championship race as a one-loss team that plays top contenders Washington and Oregon over the next three weeks (after a trip to Cal next weekend).

But, more than anything, he shared big-picture thoughts about his program and what he is trying to build at USC.

Riley was asked a question about having national championship or at least CFP hopes this season and whether it feels like the Trojans fell short of their goals? He balked at the question ...

"We're in the middle of the season, you know. That's a dream world, right? You're fighting your ass off every single week. Like, we don't come in every single week talking about winning a national championship and going to the playoffs. I don't know where that narrative starts," Riley said. "

(It probably started in his early press conferences after taking the job when he stated that he expected to compete for championships every year. It continued in the preseason when Williams talked about how he had unfinished business because he hadn't yet won a national championship in college.)

"Are we satisfied at all sitting here at 6-2? Of course, we're not. As much as it hurts anybody on the outside, I promise you it hurts us 10 times more," Riley said, later in that same response. "But just having been in this a little while, you tend to, when you get too focused on the outside things, which I think at times maybe our team has been, then a lot of times you miss an opportunity right in front of you. And that's what's so important for us to see right now.

"Yeah, do we have a nauseous feel in our stomach right now? Yeah, yeah, it kills you to lose a game like this, especially when you fight your tail off and have an epic comeback like we had -- because it was an epic comeback against a damn good football team. But do you let it defeat you and take you away from the things that you've built over time, the momentum in this program, and the honest opportunity -- it's not coach speak, it's not trying to create like something that's not there, there is a real opportunity for this team right now. And this team can do it.“

With time for just one more question before reporters were cut off, Riley was asked what made him feel that the team was at times focused on outside matters or distracted ...

This is when he gave some of his most raw, candid thoughts about where this program is in its development.

Again, he had a lot to say and it's probably best just to deliver all of it, so here goes ...

"Ah, some of it's, you can pretend as a coach that like those things don't exist. You know, you can kind of duck your head in the sand, and in a perfect world, yeah, would every single player, staff member, everybody in your program just be so hyper-focused that they don't hear noise on the outside or outside expectations or all of that? But that's probably not reality either, right? There's so much out there," he said. " ...And if you let the outside set expectations, you're always being measured up against that. And I think for us as a program, we're finding a little bit here in Year 2, you kind of take it, you zoom out here a little bit not just where we're at right now but just the evolution of this program.

"Last year, Year 1, the expectations, wherever, kind of all over the place. We come in and probably by and large overachieve in a lot of ways, and I think fair to say that the team last year probably did overachieve. OK, Year 2, this is a different step, right? Everybody expects you to be good, everybody expects that you could have a championship-caliber team. And when you're constantly trying to live up to those expectations, you can kind of fall away from maybe what put you there in that position in the first place. And you can let disappointment of not playing perfect, or when you won by 20 and you didn't win by 40 and all the outside noise that comes with that, it can get to you. And I think at times, fair to say, it's got to this team. And I don't think in a negative way, but we've had to really fight the urge to -- I think we've really had to fight to keep things on our own terms."

Riley could be talking about persistent noise about the defense and his commitment to embattled defensive coordinator Alex Grinch. Or maybe the vortex of extreme reaction that has emerged around anything Williams says that is the least bit interesting -- like this week when aggrieved keyboard warriors teed off on his comments about his poor performance in the 48-20 loss at Notre Dame last week and about his encounter with a fan on the field after that game.

Riley could be talking about the negative reaction from the fan base to tenser-than-expected wins over Arizona State, Colorado and Arizona that preceded this two-game losing streak.

Or maybe there's even more on his mind.

Either way, he continued ...

"I think that's part of our progression as a program. I think when you haven't been in this position in a while, it takes time. And it's going to take some scars, it's going to take some tough lessons to learn -- these are lessons that like we couldn't learn last year. Like, it wasn't like this, it didn't feel like this," Riley said. "This is part of our progression, and it sucks, it kills ya, but this program will be better for it because for the first time in a while there are going to be championship expectations here and those aren't going anywhere. We're not going anywhere. We signed up to do this thing for a long time, so I'm heartbroken for the team right now.

"In the big picture, this program will get more ready for being back on the stage that it was at for a long, long time, and look forward to being part of that and a lot of great memories ahead. I think if we'll stick together as a program right now, just this team right now, zooming back in, I think there could be some pretty cool things ahead for this team, and I'm appreciative to be along for the ride."