USC Needs To Own The Bye Week

Unlike the last time USC's football team took a week off when they returned to work, they forgot to pack a workable game plan and their toughness. This time around, Lincoln Riley needs to make sure the Trojans own the bye week and act like their lives depend on it.

With the No. 4 Indiana Hoosiers laying in wait who will also be coming off a bye week. USC can't revert to their Wisconsin ways.

The last time USC's football team took a week off, the Trojans returned to the field looking like they had forgotten to pack a workable game plan, along with whatever toughness they thought they might have brought with them.

This time around, Lincoln Riley needs to make sure his team owns the bye week and approaches it like their lives depend on it.

With the No. 4 Indiana Hoosiers waiting on the other side, and coming off a bye week of their own, USC cannot afford to revert to its Wisconsin ways. The Trojans need to use this time wisely, get healthy, clean up their mistakes, and prepare for what could be one of the biggest games of their season.

Beating Ohio State can change the narrative surrounding a program, however, what USC does after beating Ohio State will tell us whether anything has actually changed.

Following the first bye week of the season a few weeks ago, the Trojans traveled to Wisconsin and turned in what might have been the worst performance of the Lincoln Riley era. At least at USC. It was a disappointing 24-7 loss, the lowest-scoring offensive output of a Riley-coached team.

It was so bad, he was left answering questions about his ability to lead the team going forward.

Heading into this week's break, Riley is looking to use a different script following his team's 30-18 upset over No. 2 Ohio State. After Tuesday's practice this week, Riley mentioned that this bye week has "a lot more differences than there are similarities."

If the approach to this bye week includes some of the things USC did leading up to the Ohio State game, I like that approach. The question is, will it travel this time around?

Hopefully, a lesson was learned.

Does that mean more physical practices during a bye week than in the past? Some of it depends on how Riley feels about the roster's health.

"I think regardless of how the games have went and regardless of who we're playing next, just the way it sets up from a schedule standpoint, we're just a lot more fresh than we were from the first one," he said. "Where our roster is at, our health is at, allows us to be a little bit more aggressive this week."

It doesn't hurt that the bye weeks are relatively close together rather than spread out. What happened during the first one is still fresh in the minds of the coaching staff and the players. Hopefully, that experience will pay dividends.

"That's one of the benefits of having two of these. You get a chance to see how the team responds...then you get kind of a second run at it," Riley said. "There's quite a few things that'll be different in terms of really everything. The schedule, how long we give the guys off at the end of the week, what we do during the week, the content of the practices...there's a lot more differences than there are similarities."

The last time around, the narrative was more focused on time off and allowing players to enjoy the benefits of the Bloom Performance Center. This time, it's more about understanding what's at stake, maintaining the standard, and making the necessary sacrifices.

Maybe that's why team captain Elijah Paige said, "It's all gas right now."

"This is not a bye week for us. This is a standard week, and you uphold the standard...go out there and attack every day."

Coach Riley and his players seem to understand what's at stake, and they're saying all the right things. However, we've heard similar refrains in the past, and the results haven't always been great.

With the Ohio State victory already in the rearview mirror, perhaps Trent Mosley has the right approach to closing out the season and maximizing the bye week.

"I think a big part of this point of the season is to continue doing what you're doing," he said. "This is a time where people may fall off...they can get complacent or tired. They stop doing the little things, the details."

And that's exactly what USC cannot afford to do.

Riley and his staff have a responsibility to make sure complacency doesn't creep into the building. The Ohio State victory was a tremendous step forward, but it doesn't mean the work is finished. If anything, it raises the expectations for what comes next.

Indiana isn't going to care how good USC looked against the Buckeyes. The Hoosiers aren't going to be impressed by the Trojans' new attitude or how well they practiced during the bye week.

They'll be looking to hand USC another reminder that one big win doesn't make a season.

This is where Riley needs to show that he and his program have learned from their mistakes. The first bye week produced a team that looked anything but prepared. The second needs to produce a team that's ready to play its best football when the stakes are highest.

Own the bye week, or it will own you.