Coach Lincoln Riley misses practice at USC, stays home for 2nd straight day due to illness

By GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lincoln Riley was away from his team at Southern California on Tuesday for the second straight day due to an illness.

Riley missed Tuesday’s practice as the No. 24 Trojans (6-2, 4-1 Pac-12) continued preparations for their road game at California on Saturday. He was at home under doctors’ instructions, but the school wouldn’t comment on the nature of Riley’s illness.

“The guys have handled things in a pretty professional way,” said Dennis Simmons, USC’s assistant head coach and receivers coach. “It’s not like he’s gone forever. It’s one of those deals where we’ve got an objective, which takes place this Saturday afternoon, and that was our main focus. … We work for an incredible man and a great leader. He set a great plan together, and we’re just following it until he returns.”

Defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said the Trojans’ game-planning wouldn’t change in Riley’s absence. USC has lost back-to-back games for the second time in Riley’s tenure as it prepares to travel to Berkeley.

“From the staff’s standpoint, the head coach has a specific role … and we can communicate with him as normal,” Grinch said. “We’ve got our roles on defense, roles on offense, and we’ll crank this thing out.”

Kliff Kingsbury, the former Arizona Cardinals and Texas Tech head coach serving as a senior offensive analyst for the Trojans this season, also is taking a more active role this week with USC’s quarterbacks. Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams is coming off an unimpressive three-week stretch of play that began the week before the Trojans’ two losses.

“Kliff has honestly done a lot of the things that he’s done in the past,” Simmons said. “He’s obviously been more active in the quarterback room, but aside from that, his role has been as beneficial as it has since the day he got here.”

Simmons and Riley have worked together since 2015, and most of Riley’s coaching staff has spent multiple seasons with him. That familiarity has made this temporary transition relatively smooth, but it’s obvious the Trojans are in a vulnerable spot after dropping two straight games and falling to their lowest AP Top 25 ranking since Riley arrived.

USC was blown out at Notre Dame 48-20 on Oct. 14 before losing 34-32 to Utah last Saturday on a field goal at the gun, sending Riley and Williams to the first Coliseum defeat of their USC tenures.

Although the Trojans’ national championship aspirations are pretty much dead, safety Calen Bullock said the team is rallying around the chance to compete for a Pac-12 title. After facing Cal (3-4, 1-3), USC finishes the regular season with a three-game gauntlet against No. 5 Washington, No. 8 Oregon and No. 23 UCLA.

“We’ve got a standard here that we focus on, and kind of we don’t care what people on the outside say about us, or what expectations they make for us,” said Bullock, who returned an interception for a touchdown against the Utes. “We’ve got to reframe and restart every single week. We lost, and it’s a new week. We’re trying to move forward.”

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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football