Lincoln Riley admits disappointment, but says USC can't dwell on Notre Dame loss

It was a shocker, but that's why we love college football, right? Anything can happen, especially in rivalry games, and No. 10 USC found that out the hard way against No. 21 Notre Dame this past weekend.

Playing in South Bend, USC took its 6-0 record and College Football Playoff hopes and put them on the line. The result was a dominating 48-20 win in favor of the Fighting Irish.

The normally explosive USC offense put up only 302 yards of offense. Reigning Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams was picked off three times. The Trojans committed nine penalties as a whole for a negative 75 yards.

It was a beatdown of epic proportions and an ugly showing for head coach Lincoln Riley's team, and while it was certainly a humbling experience for the Trojans — Riley doesn't feel his squad can dwell on the loss.

“We can’t dwell on it,” Riley recently said (h/t On3) “That’s the main thing. We’ve got some big opportunities in front of us right now as a football team.

“We’re disappointed with the way we played,” he continued. “That’s not representative of what we expect — our expectations, our standard. Just a lot of missed opportunities in that game that, certainly, we regret. We hate that we missed them and weren’t at our best. I think our best would have been good enough.”

Riley is right in two ways. First, the Trojans do have the talent to beat anyone in the country when they're on. The just didn't have "it" on Saturday, that unfortunately happened in a huge game. Great teams do sometimes have bad performances, though.

Riley is also right to encourage his players to move on. They can still make the CFP with one loss and their goal of winning the Pac-12 is still in reach. To that point, USC has no wiggle room for not staying focused on the here and now. 

The Trojans still have games against ranked opponents in Utah, Washington, Oregon and UCLA remaining on the schedule. 

“We’ve got to go work, we’ve got to roll up our sleeves. That’s the only way, when you’re in a little bit of a rut, that you get yourself out of it,” said Riley. “You’ve got to go back to work and our guys have certainly had that mentality so far.”