On Friday, the USC football team defeated Fresno State 39-0 at the Coliseum. With the victory, the Trojans improved to 2-0 on the 2026 season.
Following the game, USC head coach Lincoln Riley spoke to the media. Here are some of the highlights of what he had to say:
On his team’s performance
“Excited about the win. Really excited about the shutout. Obviously, it’s hard to do. Doesn’t happen very often in college football these days. We played at our standard for a higher level tonight, and that was really great to see on all sides. I think the excitement, energy in the Coliseum, energy with our football team was pretty consistent the whole way through. I think we played better as a football team than we did in week one. And that’s what you got to do. It may sound boring,
cliche, whatever, but that’s how you get good, right? You just have to keep taking steps. I thought we attacked it on the short week. I thought the team really prepped well and was really just ready to play this game.”
On Gary Patterson’s defense
“We did some great things. He makes things challenging on the other side, and I think what you saw was our belief in it was even higher than it was in week one. When we went back and watched week one, we did a lot of good things. Obviously, the first unit did, but when they weren’t good, it’s just a lot of us not trusting it at times, and I don’t want to hide under, ‘Well it’s young guys and the twos’ or things like that. It doesn’t matter;we’re gonna need them all. So I thought we trusted it more, and saw that he’s going to do some things, alongwith our staff, to put us in some good positions, and I thought our guys played fast and confident. That’s a group that challenges you in a lot of different ways because of how multiple they are, all the different personnel groupings that they play in. They return some good football players on that team. So for us to limit them the way we did, especially stopping the run, allowed us to get a chance to get after them up front, and then created some opportunities in the secondary. It was obviously a really good performance.”
On having more explosive plays than last week
“We had some opportunities where we protected well and were able to do it. Our drives were pretty completemost of the game. We had a couple of things that we didn’t like; we messed up a few things. I had a couple bad calls, and then obviously the turnovers. We had two fumbles and we didn’t convert a third and a fourth and one in the red zone. We played pretty good other than that, but you can’t have that, right? That’s just not good enough. So we have to be better there. We have to be more consistent. We were still a little sloppy early in the run game. We made some explosive plays in the pass game, but we have a lot of work to do.”
On the safeties and run defense
“Well, the safeties. Those are hard to get. I don’t know as long as I’ve been a coach if I’ve ever had two in a game, so that was pretty darn cool. The turnovers, stopping the run, the way we tackled, I thought we were pretty sticky in coverage. I thought our front and then our back end really played well together and complemented each other, and that’s what a really good defense looks like. So yeah, it was steady with the dose of explosive plays defensively, and that’s a pretty good recipe.”
On playing a more complete game than last week
“I think our mentality was good, and we were excited about the things we did well last week, but we knew there was going to be room for improvement. And I thought we played a pretty complete game. I thought the guys that got opportunities there at the end of the game were awesome. That red zone stop at the end was tremendous because that’s something we’ve really been emphasizing heavily. To end right there in the red zone with the stop on downs was tremendous, and I think we had some of our younger guys that when they got their opportunity were a little bit more ready this time and learned a little bit and and like I said that’s important for us because we’re going to need those guys. It may not always be a whole group, but you’re going to need this guy here and that guy there. That’s how great teams function. So, excited to see the progress.”
On safety Kennedy Urlacher
“He’s a high energy, high effort player. He’s got a lot of contact courage. He’s a really physical guy. You know, this is his third college defense, right? In as many years. I think it’s been great for him that he’s starting to settle in more and more into a system and understand it. And once he goes and turns it loose, I mean, you feel his speed and again his physicality on the field. So, yeah, he stepped up big for us tonight.”
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lincoln Riley discusses USC’s 39-0 victory over Fresno State
