USC interim head coach Donte Williams is trying to keep what's left of this season on the tracks, trying to keep his Trojans invested after they fell to 3-4 with their hopes for bowl eligibility squarely in jeopardy at this point.
But his postgame message Saturday night after USC's 31-16 loss at No. 13-ranked Notre Dame is going to be a hard sell.
"Truth be told, I still don't feel like we lost that game. I feel like we ran out of time. I feel like if we had another quarter no telling what could have happened," Williams said. "At the same time, that's a great football team out there we just played. You've got to respect the rivalry, got to respect the tradition of both programs, and we made way too many mistakes against a really, really good football team. Way too many mistakes from all facets."
The latter part of that comment is spot on -- the first part a bit wishful thinking as USC was down 15 points and Notre Dame likely could have scored again if there was indeed more time, rather than kneeling out the clock twice from the 8 and 10-yard lines.
Again, Williams is a first-time head coach trying to keep his team invested after a fourth double-digit loss in seven games.
It is true that USC made a late surge, turning a 24-3 deficit early in the fourth quarter into a 24-16 deficit with more than 8 minutes to play. But the Trojans' defense yielded another long touchdown drive to Notre Dame right after that and the offense didn't have another response in it.
Ultimately, this game was lost much earlier in the night with a deflating turning point coming at the end of the second quarter and beginning of the third, when the Trojans had a clock mismanagement issue and ran out of time before getting a field goal try off at the end of the half, and then had a costly dropped pass from tight end Malcolm Epps that would have set the offense up at the goal line rather than having to settle for what was ultimately a missed field goal.
But like Williams said, there was plenty of blame to go around.
He discussed the end-of-first-half scenario and the self-inflicted mistakes among other topics, including the status of backup QB Jaxson Dart.
Watch the full postgame press conference below, as well as separate video interviews with offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, defensive coordinator Todd Orlando, QB Kedon Slovis, Dart, OL Brett Neilon, RB Keaontay Ingram and CB Chris Steele.
