USC Trojans' Lincoln Riley Offers Bold Strategy on Closing Out Games

One of those changes was bringing general manager Chad Bowden as USC football's new general manager, who has provided valuable input to the football program's future. USC also hired Trumain Carroll to improve the Trojans' strength and conditioning. As most programs have done in this new era of college football, USC also brought in talent in the transfer portal as they focused on adding size.

The Trojans also return plenty of talent on their roster with 68 returning players, including 20 of them who started at least one game. USC is hopeful that the returning players can build off last season's late-game mistakes that resulted in more wins. Here's what Riley had to say about closing out games this season.

"The overlying message for this team, there's two pieces of it," Riley said. "One has been to take those next steps. Every part of the program's got to get a little better. What last year revealed is there's not any part of the program that's not pretty good, or on the doorstep of being pretty good. If not, you don't have the chance to win damn near every single game you played in the fourth quarter. But also to finish those."

USC Is Capable of Closing Out Games

There were some cases last year where USC did win close games, including the regular season finale against the UCLA Bruins where the Trojans won 19-13. USC has shown that they are more than capable of closing out games in the fourth quarter; it just comes down to execution at the end, which Riley alluded to.

"We were good at some of the end of games. We had a couple of two-minute drives where we won games and two-minute stops where we won games. We obviously had some that we didn't. I didn't want to be short sighted at it and only say we got to finish these games at the end," said Riley.

USC Faces Another Gauntlet of a Schedule in 2025

USC's new focus on strength and conditioning has caught the attention of the Trojans players and could put the team at a significant advantage as they start the season on Aug. 30 against Missouri State.

"It's focusing on the really small details," offensive lineman Tobias Raymond said. "Because small details lead to bigger mistakes. And I think that's one thing that's huge for us as a team, is focusing on little details that turn into big problems. Once you get control of little problems, it's huge for the team in general."

USC's 2025 schedule features critical road games against Illinois, Notre Dame, Nebraska, and Oregon, as well as a home game against Michigan. These five games could be tight games going into the fourth quarter. We'll see if the lessons from last season will pay off in these matchups, which will make or break the Trojans' season.