His voice was hoarse, his exhaustion evident. The flu had been wreaking havoc on USC’s locker room since late last week. But by Tuesday, four days ahead of its crosstown matchup with UCLA, it had finally caught up with Lincoln Riley, whose third rivalry week at USC now promises to be an especially viral one.
The coach seemed to even cough on cue when asked about the flu.
“It’s had a little bit of an impact,” Riley said. “It’s part of it, though. Like I told the guys today, Saturday at 7:30, nobody’s going to care what you had or didn’t have. You got to be ready to go play the game. You’ve got different obstacles that come up, and you’ve got to go face them. We’ll deal with it, adjust how we need to, but no excuses — gotta be ready for Saturday.”
Several players already fought through the sickness last Saturday, among them running back Woody Marks, who rushed for a career-high 146 yards even as he struggled to breathe because of flu. Riley said after the game that the locker room had “looked like a MASH unit” in the days leading up to the game.
That’s only gotten worse since, Riley said. But the coach is hopeful the outbreak hit its peak Tuesday, giving the team plenty of time to recover ahead of Saturday’s rivalry matchup.
Until then, it means more mental reps than physical ones for many players, some of whom have had their practice time reduced to meetings on Zoom. Riley said most players or staff who had gotten sick were feeling better within three days.
That should give Riley enough time to be fine by Saturday. But whether USC will have a clean bill of health by then remains to be seen.
For defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, who has so far evaded the flu, the threat of getting sick had him knocking on wood.
But Riley was optimistic Tuesday that the worst of USC’s outbreak was over.
“I think we’ll get better from here,” he said.
High praise for Huard
After switching out one five-star quarterback prospect for another in the class of 2025, Riley pointed to “tremendous” work from quarterbacks coach Luke Huard as why USC was able to manage the delicate dance it took to land Husan Longstreet after nearly two years focused on Julian Lewis.
It was Huard who made the first inroads with the fast-rising Corona Centennial quarterback.
Huard, Riley said, “was a big key to kinda all that transpired here this week. Which is a great thing. He’s done a really great job with both our guys here in recruiting and has been a big help for our program.”