COLLEGE PARK, Maryland -- USC coach Lincoln Riley said he hasn't been through anything quite like this in his career, as the Trojans blew a fourth quarter lead and lost in the final minute for the fourth time in the last five games.

Maryland scored on a 3-yard quarterback keeper by Billy Edwards Jr. with 53 seconds left and the Trojans were stopped on fourth down as they lost 29-28 and are now 3-4 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten.

Watch the postgame press conference with Riley, quarterback Miller Moss and safety Bryson Shaw and scroll down for a complete transcript of their comments.

**Full recap and postgame reaction from USC's 29-28 loss at Maryland**

**Join the postgame discussion on our Trojan Talk board here**

Full postgame transcript -- Lincoln Riley, Miller Moss, Bryson Shaw:

LR opening comments:

"Heartbreaking way to end it. I know it's been kind of the tale of the last several weeks for us is do some good things, get a lead and obviously we just have not been able to finish these games. This one was symptomatic of all three sides -- all three sides had opportunities. I thought we played a pretty good first half, put ourselves in position, all three sides had opportunities -- whether to get stops, to score, make field goals, all of that, and didn't make enough plays. Again, that's road football for you. So, yeah, heartbroken for the guys in the locker room. It's been a really tough stretch. Emotionally, it's tough, man. When you fight like these guys are fighting and put yourself in position to win some of these games, do a lot of good things out there, but it just simply hasn't been enough. Just like last week, I own it, it's my responsibility, I've got to get this team to play better at the end of games, and I've obviously not done a good enough job of that, clearly.

'So, yeah, it's a tough one to swallow. I told the guys in the game, the game doesn't care that you've had some real close heartbreaking losses before. These weeks are their own weeks, their own nights. It's kind of a strange stuff that we've been in. I don't know really that I could compare it to anything that I've experienced it in my career, but you know, we've got two choices going forward and those two choices are pretty obvious. So we've got a quick turnaround game here against Rutgers on Friday night on a short week that we've got to come back and be ready to go, and that will be our challenge as team to get over this one and get onto the next one and the rest of the season."

Why do you think this program struggles so much to finish games?."

LR: "I don't know."

​How do you reconcile that it's been kind of the same story each time -- how do you make sense of this?

LR: "Well, I don't like to compare just the end of games. It's just we've had so many games that have come right down to it in a row, and I've been a part of other teams that had other things that were kind of their thing that they had a hard time getting over. But yeah, I just think the one that's made this unique is just how emotional all of them are and heartbreaking the losses are. And it's like that over and over and over again. That's probably been the challenge. If you're not good on third down on defense or you're not good in the red zone on offense, yeah, that's going to put a strain on you. But our strain has been play good -- play good enough to have leads, to have opportunities to win games -- and not finish them. That's probably the toughest thing you can experience in football, and we've experienced several times over. So, we're emphasizing it, we're working on it. Obviously, we've got to do a better job of it because, again, I say we're doing a lot of the heavy lifting, which is put yourself in position to win games against good teams. But obviously the inability to finish them off has been, it's just, it eats at you."

​That inability, does it feel like it's built on itself and gotten in the heads of the players

LR: "It may be in some. Sometimes it's hard to generalize like the whole team feeling exactly the same because some guys, a lot tonight that are playing really for the first time in some of these big environments, and we've got some guys that have played a lot of football. So I don't know that I could generalize. There's probably some of both in there. I still feel like we're a very confident team in those moments. I mean, like even after the field goal got blocked, defensively when we took the field I think expected to stop them like we did the drive before. Even after they scored, offensively we took the field saying we're going to drive down there and we're going to go kick a field goal and win this sucker. So I don't feel a lack of confidence from the guys as a whole. It doesn't feel that way on the sidelines, but I know there's some frustrations, right? We're all human, these kids are just human, and when you go through as many of these as we've had and you're so agonizingly close to these, yeah, it hurts. And I'm sure it affects all of them different ways."

Was there any thought of going for it on the fourth down instead of kicking the field goal that got blocked?

LR: "There was. There was a lot of discussion back and forth. It was close. I mean, the book certainly says that you're up 6, you can make it a 9-point game and make it really, really difficult for you to win obviously if you convert that. It's a 41-yard field goal, we feel good about it, we obviously had a protection bust in there and those are mistakes you can't make on the road."

Why do you think it's been so hard to finish out some of these games?

LR: "We've just kind of taken our turns. I mean, closing out games is hard, No. 1. I mean, we've been a good enough team to have a chance to win every game, but we haven't been quite good enough to separate. And when you put yourself in these moments you are going to have to make some plays to beat somebody, especially on the road. Like, you're going to have to make that field goal or make that fourth down tackle or make that catch or make that throw or block or whatever it is because it's just not going to be handed to you. We've been good enough to have the lead to win them all -- we just haven't been good enough to separate. So we've put ourselves in that position. We're going to continue to hammer at it because some of the same things that aren't happening they are happening in a positive way in other parts of the game or we wouldn't be in those positions, so just got to stay at it. There's not a magic remedy, right? You go back to work, you keep identifying the things we're not doing well, keep trying to emphasize and maximize the things that we are and trying to be 1-0 next week."

Last two weeks you came out cold in the second half, what has been different from games before that where you were hot in the second half?

​LR: "We were and we actually had a great start to this one because we got a stop, offense had a good drive going, and then again we had a mistake -- just what you can't do on the road because we had like a golden opportunity, we felt we were going to take all the air out of the stadium right there. You knew after that one that kind of gave them some life, gave them some momentum, you knew it was going to be a little bit of a dogfight after that."

Miller and Bryson, how do you look at the rest of this season and what you want to make of it, what you want to get out of it?

BS: "I mean, it comes down to pride. My father raised me to keep fighting no matter what. That's just kind of who I am. I know guys on this team are the exact same way. We're going to fight every day. That's the only option we have, kind of like coach said, and it just really comes down to individual pride and then as a whole having pride. We're going to take it one game at a time, Rutgers on Friday is the only thing we can look forward to. I know I'm going to keep fighting as hard as I can, and I have full faith in the secondary and the defense and the team as a whole, being around these guys that we're going to keep fighting. Kind of what coach said, we're confident in every game. We're confident in all these games that come down to the wire and like, you know, 'How did that just happen?' But full confidence. This hurts, don't get me wrong. This hurts like crazy. But I know going forward that we're going to keep fighting, and that's the only option we have.'

MM: "Just to echo what B-Shaw said, it's not about any kind of end result or whatever that may be. We said at the beginning of the year we're committed to each other no matter what, no matter what the result is, and I think that holds true. It's not contingent on result. I think we all love and appreciate each other, and we're going to continue to fight for one another -- not based on any result."

When they went for 2, did that make you think they didn't respect your defense?

LR: "No, I figured if they had the opportunity at the end they would either go for 2 on that one or the next one -- it was kind of setting that up. Just kind of, the game had that kind of feel to it, so no, it's just a strategy to try to put yourself only down 6 to where a touchdown and extra point obviously wins it, and it can be risky both ways. You understand why somebody would do it -- you just have to be prepared to do it again if you don't get it. But no, I don't think it was anything other than them trying to put themselves in position to win."