Trojans got out of mud at halftime

With USC down by Il, Riley says he sensed shift in team’s demeanor

- RYAN KARTJE

USC is now just two wins away from a trip to the College Football Playoff.

But the bigger statement Saturday, while rallying in the rain to beat a team such as Iowa, wasn’t so much about this season, but rather the program's trajectory after next week's marquee matchup at No. 7 Oregon.

Trojans coach Lincoln Riley said later that he sensed this shift at halftime, just as the team’s Playoff hopes were hanging by a thread. His No. 15 Trojans were trailing Iowa 21-10, once again having succumbed to the same slow start that plagued them the last two games. They'd been outplayed, outworked, outsmarted. The run defense was awful. The offense was stuck in the mud.

Still, as Riley looked out over the locker room, he saw something he hadn't last season or the season before that.

"You could tell from the look in their eye," Riley said. "I felt very strongly we were going to come back out and make a run."

We saw it for ourselves in the second half. USC's defense shut out Iowa from that point on. It was the third game in a row in which the Trojans gave up three points or fewer after half. The offense came roaring back, scoring 16 consecutive points. The comeback felt almost run-of-the-mill in the moment. As if falling behind was just a part of the plan all along.

That it came in the pouring rain, against a team whose style is so quintessentially Big Ten, made it particularly meaningful.

"If there ever was one, that was a culture win," Riley said. "Our team's resilience, their response at halftime... we just keep coming, we have all year." Think of how different that feels from this time last season, when it was a foregone conclusion that USC would fold in the fourth quarter. Now, instead, there's a sense of swagger and confidence that hasn't been there since before Caleb Williams hurt his hamstring in the 2022 Pac-12 championship game.