LOS ANGELES — Sitting in his office last Thursday, two days before the call that might have shifted the course of USC’s season, head coach Lincoln Riley laughed when asked if the Trojans ad to adjust to the way games were officiated in the Big Ten.
“Yes,” Riley smiled, on a Zoom call with members of the media. “Yes. Very much so.”
He spoke, then, in nothing but positive light. The Big Ten, Riley said, let them play more. There were less “ticky-tack” fouls called, as he put it, a...