What Lincoln Riley had to say after USC's second-half comeback vs. Wisconsin

Saturday in L.A., the USC football team picked up the program's first-ever Big Ten victory. However, it wasn't as easy as many people thought it might be.

Trailing Wisconsin 21-10 at halftime, the Trojans looked lifeless in the first half. Three turnovers, poor taclking, and troubling play along the offensive line had many USC fans concerned when the two teams went to the break.

However, the Trojans would respond by playing a nearly flawless second half en route to a 38-21 win. After the game, head coach Lincoln Riley met with the media where he talked about how happy he was with his team's second-half performance.

"Super proud of the second half," he said, "the resilience of this team. We didn't play a really good first half in any phase. It's kind of the second week in a row that we've been in the locker room and it's like, 'All right, are we gonna step up and go play the way that we know we're capable of?' And we did that. We've done it two weeks in a row.

"Obviously, we want to start faster. Clearly, turnovers, explosive plays by them -- not a very good first half in any way, shape or form. But the resilience of this group to come back and I think 28-0 there in the second half, some big plays defensively, had the huge recovery by Hank on the punt that was a big play and then offensively got going a little bit and made some competitive plays. So, proud of the way we stepped up. It's a good, tough, physical team that we just battled and great to see our guys really respond. Appreciate our crowd, the excitement in there in the Coliseum there in the second half was really cool. So, great day, awesome to get our first Big Ten win, which is great, and obviously onto the next one."

When asked what the difference was in the way his team played in the second half, Riley had a simple answer.

"Just a really, really good speech," he said.

Pressed further to reveal what he told his team after the first half, he downplayed any notion of an emotional halftime speech.

"It wasn't that good," Riley said. "It was these guys. They were, I think we came in just knowing we simply beat ourselves in a lot of ways. And Wisconsin made some good plays. I'm not saying that. But we gave up explosive plays, we didn't stop the run in the first half. We moved the ball pretty well offensively, but obviously had the two turnovers in plus territory and then we had the big special teams play that got them momentum.

"We just really didn't do anything very well, but we felt like a lot of it was under our control and we kind of laid out exactly what we felt like the second half should look like. I think the big deal was each side of the ball has got to hold up their end. We've got to get it started defensively and we did that, and then each side of the ball has got to hold that. If you do it, you get in a little bit of a momentum swing. We were able to create that and really ride it out the second half."

In each of the past two weeks, USC's defense has been noticeably better in the second half. Riley spoke about what defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn has done to make those improvements.

"Yeah, I think he's got a really good feel obviously for our system and the way that people are trying to attack us," he said "and conversely the way that we want to attack people. I think especially when you're playing new opponents -- it's not like you've got a bunch of familiar coordinators you've been going against in the same league forever and ever -- so he's getting a good feel for the people we're playing.

"He's getting a good feel for our guys and what we're doing well and adjustments we need to make. I think D'Anton but really our entire staff, those guys really communicate well, work well together and they're very much on the same page about anything we need to improve, and so far we've been able to do that."

Riley next was asked about what this wins says about his team's ability to compete in the Big Ten. He expressed confidence in his squad.

"I mean this, like, we knew we could compete," he said. "That was not a -- never do I walk in and say 'Oh God, I hope we can compete in this conference. We knew we could compete. Now, you have to win, you have to go play well. And so, to be able after the way last week finished and to come back, we had a lot of new guys in new positions all over the place, a lot of guys really stepped up on this football team, to have the first half go the way it did and to come back and play that well just says a lot about the character of the guys in this room. We're going to battle, we're not going anywhere, we don't panic and that's a good quality to have because when you play the schedule we play you're going to have some ups and downs. You've got to be incredibly resilient. So far we have been that.

Wide receiver Ja'Kobi Lane had a big day with 10 catches for over 100 yards and two scores. Riley talked about his performance and whether he's becoming this team's No. 1 receiver.

"He stepped up and made some big-time plays," Riley said. I give him credit. He made some really tough, competitive plays. He made some really timely plays. He had the one with the big hit over the middle, he had some big-time third down plays, obviously in the red zone he was great so he played a really good game. And yeah, I think he's growing, I think he's continuing to mature in terms of the way he plays and the way he prepares and he's just got to keep going. But it was great to see a young guy in that environment step up and make the plays he did."

The focus then returned to the slow start in the first half. Riley was asked about the reasons for two-straight poor showings to start a game.

"If it were only that easy," he said. "This one felt a little bit different. We probably played a little better first half offensively this week ... we had three turnovers, and that was the difference. So yeah, listen, we will have the ability to start fast. We have it now and we've got to go be able to do it, but at the same time you just can't script out how all these are going to go and it's just about your response at the end of the day. Like the flip side is, next week if we happen to go play a really good first half, we got to show our ass back up the second half and be ready to go too. You've just got to be prepared for four quarter games when you play really good competition."

Starting QB Miller Moss endured some punishment but kept making plays against Wisconsin. Riley talked about what Moss' toughness means to his team.

"He had some tough plays," he said. "The one thing we say in that room and always have is show me a tough team and I'll show you a tough quarterback, show me a soft team and Ill show you a soft quarterback. You've got to have it. But it's not just quarterback -- it's all over the field. You got to have that. You can have a couple of individually tough guys, but is the group, is that something when you watch the entire team play that you feel that? That's something that I think this team has a lot of right now. He's a good example, Kamari is, there's a lot of them on our team."

Moss' signature play from Saturday was his touchdown run near the goal line. Riley was asked about that play specifically.

"No, as Miller said, it's not 100 percent designed that way," Riley said. "There's always -- not always, but in some parts of our offense, there's that option. Miller saw it, was aggressive and made a great play."

Finally, after saying he had no update on the injured Eric Gentry, Riley was asked about the play of his offensive line. He said that, like the rest of his team, that unit played well in the second half.

"Yeah, I thought we bounced back," he said. "We played I thought, especially a really good second half. We had just a couple of individual breaks in the first half, not much, so yeah, I thought we did some really good things. And also playing with two new tight ends, which is a big part of our offense as well. That took a lot and that's some big boy ball for a lot of these guys, so I thought our O-line stepped up, did some really, really good things and we'll continue to build on it."