The USC Trojans have the top scoring offense in the country so far this season, but there’s one area where the team hasn’t been great on offense in recent weeks: third-down efficiency.
USC has converted just 9 of 28 third down attempts in the past three games, and head coach Lincoln Riley knows something has to change.
“The biggest issue that we’ve had on it is we’ve been in way, way too many third-and-longs and several extra-longs,” Riley said this week according to On3. “That’s been really the biggest problem. You sit there and play a ton of third-and-longs, that’s going to be the case. Shoot, the last several games we’ve hardly ran any third-and-short plays.”
Riley made a point that the easiest way to improve their third-down efficiency is to do better on first and second down to make those third downs a little bit easier or eliminate them altogether.
“Good third-down teams, one, you don’t get into third downs, and, two, you get into the third downs where percentage wise the offense has some type of advantage, and those are your shorts and your more medium normal type downs,” Riley said. “We’ve been in a ton of third-and-longs. Obviously want to be better in those, but you can be the best team in the country if you convert 30% of your third-and-longs. That’s just the name of the game that way. That’s the biggest thing.”
The Trojans will face perhaps their toughest test so far this season on Saturday night when they take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. We’ll have to see if the third-down offense is improved.
[On3]
