Lincoln Riley's USC offense falls flat in ugly loss at Wisconsin

If you thought Lincoln Riley's seat was already hot at USC, it is probably going to be scorching after Saturday's ugly 24-7 loss at unranked Wisconsin. 

It was not only an ugly road loss for Riley and the Trojans, but it was one of the worst offensive performances his offense has ever put on a football field.

Lincoln Riley's USC offense struggles in road loss to Wisconsin

It's not just the fact that USC lost this game that is going to stand out.

It's the way it lost, and the way the offense could not generate anything against Wisconsin's defense.

It was so bad that it was the first time that a Riley offense has ever been limited to just seven points in a game where he was the head coach. 

Even worse: USC's longest offensive play of the game was 15 yards.

They averaged only 5.4 yards per pass attempt, and finished the day with negative 17 yards rushing on 25 attempts. It is fair to point out that a lot of that is due to sacks (sacks in college count as negative rushing yards), but even when you eliminate the sack yardage, USC's running backs had just 40 yards on 20 carries. That is only two yards per rush. 

It looked even worse than the numbers.

Especially when you consider that they lost by 17 points to a team that had 58 yards passing. 

The frustration with Riley at USC is that he simply hasn't delivered on the hype that came with his hiring. With Saturday's loss, Riley is 41-20, but has not won more than nine games in a season since his first year and has consistently struggled to beat ranked opponents.

That could be a problem when you look at the remainder of USC's schedule this season as it not only features three ranked opponents over the next four games, they are all top-10 opponents with Ohio State, Indiana (away) and UCLA all remaining.

He might need to win at least two of those games, and maybe all three, to salvage this season and take himself off the hot seat.