I didn't want to write this column again.
There are only so many times you can write that USC needs to move on from Lincoln Riley before the words lose their impact. I wrote it in September, after Oregon walked out of the Coliseum with a 41-27 win. I said then that it wasn't about one loss. It was about what the loss represented and where the season was headed.
Seven weeks later, the season has arrived exactly where I said it would. Exactly where it always does.
So why write it again? Because Riley keeps saying the same thing again.
After USC lost 27-13 at Indiana on Saturday, a loss that ended whatever playoff hopes the Trojans had left, Riley stood in front of reporters in Bloomington and said this:
"We're right there, close tonight — this game came down to a couple of plays."
It's his favorite thing to say after big losses, and he has had plenty of practice. Two years ago, after losing at Minnesota, he said USC was two plays away from being 5-0. That team finished 7-6.
USC lost by 14 points on Saturday. That's not right there. That's not a couple of plays. That's two touchdowns, and it's the same two touchdowns the Trojans lost by against Oregon.
If a coach says his team is close after one loss, it's perspective. If he's still saying it in his fifth season, it's a diagnosis.
Here is where USC actually is. Riley is 6-15 against ranked teams at USC. He is 1-8 against them on the road. He will finish his fifth season without a single playoff appearance, in an era when 12 teams get in.
On Dec. 2, 2022, Riley had USC at 11-1, ranked in the top four and one win from the playoff in his first season. It felt like the beginning of something.
It was the peak. Since that night, he is 31-20.
Read that record again. That's not a contender going through a rough patch. That's 8-5, 7-6 and 9-4, with this year headed for the same neighborhood. Riley wasn't brought to USC, and he isn't being paid what he's paid, to be a coach who wins the games he's supposed to win and loses the ones that matter. That's not good enough at USC, and it hasn't been for four years.
Clay Helton, by comparison, was 39-17 over his final 56 games at USC before being fired. Helton at least led the Trojans to a conference championship and a Rose Bowl title.
What makes it worse is how the losses happen. They are the same loss.
USC and Oregon were tied at 27 in the fourth quarter. The final was Oregon 41, USC 27.
USC and Indiana were tied at 13 with 2:40 left in the third quarter. The final was Indiana 27, USC 13.
Two big games. Two ties late. Two 14-point losses. On Saturday the Trojans got inside the Indiana 10-yard line on three straight second-half drives and came away with three points. They threw three interceptions. Riley's phrase for it afterward was that USC needs to shut the door.
He's right. They have needed to shut the door since the Pac-12 title game in 2022. They needed to shut it against Tulane in the Cotton Bowl a month later. Every fall the door is open, and every November somebody else walks through it. When a team can't finish for one season, you look at the players. When it can't finish for four, with four different rosters, you look at the one thing that hasn't changed.
I know the response. What about Ohio State?
Two weeks ago, the 30-18 win over the second-ranked Buckeyes was supposed to be the breakthrough, the signature win that changed everything. Riley read a prepared statement afterward about being the right man for the job.
It was fool's gold. USC beat a team starting a freshman backup quarterback in his first career start, a team that now has three losses of its own. The signature win of the Lincoln Riley era came against a team sitting in the same pile of also-rans USC is. That says less about how far the Trojans have come than about how low the bar has dropped.
And if you want to know what's possible in this city, in this conference, right now, look 14 miles up the road.
Bob Chesney has been at UCLA for 11 months. He took over a 3-9 team. The Bruins are 10-0. He has done in one season what Riley hasn't done in five, with a fraction of the resources and none of the head start.
On Nov. 28, Riley will take his team to the Rose Bowl to face that UCLA team. A win won't change the math. A loss will just underline it.
Yes, moving on will be expensive. Riley is halfway through a 10-year contract, and USC will be writing a very large check to make him go away. But the more expensive option is the one USC keeps choosing: paying a premium price for 8-5 and hoping year six looks different from years two, three, four and five.
USC has given Riley five seasons. This isn't a small sample size. It's the body of work.
He says they're right there. They're not. They're right where they've been since December of 2022, and they'll stay there as long as he's the one telling them how close they are.
We've seen enough. It's time to show him the door.