No. 18 USC Football Defeats Washington 25-21 | Postgame Notes & Quotes

USC Postgame Notes

With the 25-21 victory, No. 18 USC improves to 5-1 on the 2026 season and 2-1 in Big Ten Conference play. Washington moves to 3-2 in its 2026 campaign and 0-2 in Big Ten play.
The temperature at kickoff was 98 degrees. This marks the hottest game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum since 2017 against Western Michigan when the temperature was also 98 degrees.
USC's last win at home against the Huskies was in 2011.
QB Jayden Maiava went 21-of-34 (.618) for 245 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT.
With 8:36 left in the first quarter, K Caden Chittenden capped off USC's opening drive with a 26-yard field goal. He also nailed a clutch 39-yarder to extend USC's lead to 25-21 in the fourth quarter. He is 6-of-7 on field goals for the season.
WR Zacharyus Williams' 40-yard reception in the second quarter set up RB Waymond Jordan's 8-yard TD run with 9:58 left on the clock, putting the Trojans up 10-3.
With 6:30 left in the third quarter, QB Jayden Maiava completed a 10-yard TD pass to WR Tanook Hines to close the point gap to 16-21.
A strip-sack by LB Elijah Newby was recovered by DT Jahkeem Stewart and returned for a 48-yard TD with 4:40 left in the 3rd quarter. This marks the longest TD by a defensive lineman since Sept. 13, 2025 when DT Jamaal Jarrett had a 70-yard interception against Purdue.
This marked the first fumble recovery TD for USC since DL Stanley Ta'ufo'ou scored on a 23-yard fumble recovery versus Nevada in 2023.
Five Trojans recorded sacks: DE Kameryn Crawford, S Alex Graham, LB Elijah Newby, LB Ta'Mere Robinson and DE Luke Wafle.
S Christian Pierce led the Trojans with 9 tackles.

Postgame Quotes | USC

Head Coach Lincoln Riley

Opening statement: "Hard fought win from the guys. I'm feeling excited about some of the steps we took and some of the clutch plays we made. Defensively, we just kept answering the bell all night. It wasn't a very clean performance. Penalties were just massive in this game. It felt like for a long period of the game we were really outplaying them. But when you make some of those mistakes, you just kind of let them keep hanging around, and we just had missed opportunities that were penalty after penalty. So, we clearly have to do a way better job on that. We had alignment penalties, we had a couple dead ball personal fouls, at the worst times possible. So, despite all that, to overcome it and overcome what we've had to this week, and come out and get a win against a quality Big Ten opponent. We'll take it. Obviously, lots to clean up, lots to be excited about, and yeah, I'm proud of the team. I'm proud of the fight. We had to dig deep for this one, there's no question. Especially with the sloppiness we played with, especially offensively. Really proud of the defense again. Just to get stop after stop against that dynamic of a quarterback was pretty awesome."

On the outlook being down 10-21 in the third quarter: "I mean, we were even pretty steady at half. We felt like we were outplaying them. We just couldn't get out of our own way a little bit, and that's going to be probably a defining thing for this team going forward, right? How much of that we can do. I am proud though that we never wavered. I felt like the guys didn't waver, the coaches didn't waver. We made the adjustments that we needed to. We didn't get into the poor us. We caused a penalty here, or should have this been called there? We just kind of had a whatever it's going to take attitude, and that's what it took."

On how to coach up players when they make errors: "How do I feel about coaching? I love coaching this team. I think you look at it twofold, right? There's the frustration of, all right, these things can't happen because it's frustrating to do all the good things and to stop them the way we were and to move the ball the way we were. But then you look at the scoreboards, you're like, all right, this doesn't make sense. So that has to get better. The flip side of it is to overcome all that and still win shows me some of the guts and toughness and culture in this room right here. We could have folded and I think if those things weren't present maybe we don't come back and get it. So exciting but we also have to get better."

On DC Gary Patterson coaching from the booth today: "We talked about it a little bit earlier in the week, and I think it's been a good learning experience for us. Going through some of these first few games, seeing the makeup of the staff, it was a conversation that he and I had on Sunday, and we thought there were some reasons, just kind of in our operation, that made sense. He knows this defense obviously better than anyone. He used to have a staff at TCU that had little to no turnover, right? And so when you had guys that had been coaching with you for 15, 20 years, like he had in a lot of ways, you might handle that differently. We have a heck of a defensive staff, and I think it's kind of like players, right? You're trying to move the chess pieces to put everybody in the right position to get the best out of them. And I thought our coaches on the field did a great job. I thought Gary called a really good game, and the players responded."

On his growing love for this team: "Obviously, I had love for the team when I was first here, and in a different way. It was actually cool. I have a video message today from like 15 former players from our first couple years. That was pretty awesome, and that's been one of the coolest things for me this week. Like how many former Trojans reached out to me personally, whether it's guys that played in eras before we got here, some of the guys in the beginning of our time, it was a ton. Maybe as many as I can remember in any week, which was really cool to see the Trojan brotherhood behind this team, behind me. So I love that. I think this team has a real love for each other. They have a real desire to be great. They're not hard to coach. They came ready. I loved our mentality. Saturday, we had a heartbreaking loss in a game that we felt like we should have won, and we came back Sunday and they were energized and ready to go Sunday night. Really were throughout the week. So I believe a lot in this team. I believe a lot in the capability, and that just pushes me to want to do everything I can to get these guys ready to play to prepare them. Because, like I told you guys last week, win or lose, coming to sit here, I know we have a good team in there, and I just want to help these guys. I want to help these guys feel that. I want to feel it a lot more in my career. I have a long way to go too. But I've been lucky to have so many awesome moments in my career, and a big part of my motivation. I want these guys to feel what I've been able to feel and this game can provide that. So a big part of my motivation is these guys being able to experience some of the things I've been lucky enough to do."

On this game getting the team over the hump: "You know, football's a funny thing, and momentum's a funny thing, right? And sometimes it just takes a little spark like that. You go blow somebody out or play awesome, that can be a spark. But sometimes these gutsy wins when you maybe don't have quite your A game, they can sometimes do something for you, maybe that even a blowout win can't do. So we have to take the positives from it, and I think this team will take a lot of momentum into this next game. This will be a big game for us, a big opportunity, especially when you look ahead at some of the bye weeks and opportunities here. Looking ahead to get some guys back healthy. After those bye weeks you start looking at how many young players are making big contributions for us. You start to get excited about the trajectory of this team, and we knew if we could right the ship right here in this middle part of the season, that we'd give ourselves a good damn chance. So we did it tonight, and hopefully we can do it again."

On the positive impact the pass rush had on the defense this game: "It was huge. As Jakeem [Stewart] said, our D line is the tip of the spear. We have put a massive emphasis in every way possible to make our D line as good as we can, and we're to the point where we need to expect a big time performance out of that group every week. They're good enough to do it. That's our mentality, and if they're going to be the tip of the spear, then they have to bring it every single week. And they did tonight. They largely affected the game against a guy that's challenging because if you rush him too much, you can open up lanes, and he can make you pay. But if you don't, then he can just sit back there. So I thought we did a pretty nice job finding the balance."

Jahkeem Stewart, DT

On the defense staying in the game: "As a defense, I feel as though we just stuck together. The main thing for us was to play connected, and I feel we did as a defensive line because we always tell the defense, it's on us. We're the tip of the spear, so we just stand together like we're not really worried about the score. We're just worrying about playing for our team, and I feel that's what we did, and we came out victorious. But like Coach Riley said, there's a lot to fix. But as always, we have one of the best coaching staffs in the country because we're gonna go and fix it. No team comes out perfect. And I feel as though it takes time. Time is something we are working on managing, and we will definitely go fix that stuff right now."

On his fumble recovery touchdown: "I really was a spy player, but Kam [Crawford] told me to go inside so I could cover for him, and I did, and I made the quarterback step up, and you know, thanks to [Elijah] Newby for getting a sack, and I picked the ball up and ran 22 miles per hour."

Riley with a laugh: "If that was 22, they're going to disband that GPS company."

Jayden Maiava, QB

On not being able to find consistency this game: "Yeah, just being able to trust it and fall back on routine plays."

On whether the 29-yard pass in the fourth quarter was intended for TE Carson Tabaracci: "For sure."

Visitors Postgame Quotes | Washington

Head Coach Jedd Fisch

Opening Statement: "Okay, great football game that came down to the last 50 seconds of the game. Really proud of the way our guys fought and the way our guys played there at the end. Thought it was an awesome job defensively getting the stop, and then offensively finding a way to get themselves in the red area. And we were down with a minute left on the 17-yard line, and had some great opportunities. Mon [Demond Williams Jr., QB] made a great fourth down play to keep the drive alive. Chris Lawson made a great catch, but we just fell short. I think we had third down on the 14-yard line and took a sack there and made the fourth down pretty difficult. For the most part, I'd like to give credit to Coach Riley and USC. They battled. They played really hard. They ran the ball a lot, and I thought that when they needed to hit some passes, they hit some passes. It was one of those games, 21-10 in the third quarter. We had an opportunity to put it away, and then they made a big, long conversion, and then after that we had to go back and we can't turn the ball over and give them seven points. So altogether, I think that our players played their hearts out. I thought it was a great competition, and that's what college football is: go compete, and that's that's the message."

On the team's progress week to week: "I thought there were moments that we continue to play better, and we all know that we're creating progress in our building, and we're looking at our players, and as they keep playing, are we getting better? And it was awesome to see Brian Bonner have 19 carries for 90 yards. So that was progress. It's always tough at the end when you don't come out on top in a press conference to be talking about all the good things that people did. But Chris Lawson continues to make great plays, and I think he had six targets, five catches, 80 yards, and a huge, huge catch that we had to make on fourth down and 11 on our sideline. I thought John Mills stepped in at left tackle and had a lot of really good plays at left tackle. That doesn't mean he's the left tackle. That means he stepped in today and did a really good job. I thought there was some progress there, but we want to just continue to get better. That's all we're looking for. I thought defensively there was really good progress the way we covered today. I thought Dylan Robinson had his best day, so in that regard, that was cool to see. But we have to see: can we go back to back? Can we keep making it better? Can we even be better next week?"

On generating offensive plays: "Right now it's certainly challenging to get the sticks moving right. You just feel that you have a third down that you're looking to convert, and something happens, whatever that something is, when it does and you get stopped, there's no tempo involved. There's no ability to get that energy that we like to play with when we can convert and then get on the ball and make some plays. So when we were able to do that, things look good. But we just weren't able to get in a rhythm. Third down conversions are a problem. So if you're not converting on third down, it's become an issue of really getting into a rhythm. And then the other part of it is, our second downs have not been as good as you want them to be. We could have a plus seven run on second and first and 10, and then on second and three we haven't been able to get that first down. That's when you need to get it going anyway. So we have to keep finding ways. But there were a lot of positive things today that I could take away and feeling like there were opportunities there. Maybe we made some, didn't make others, but I think we had the opportunity to get going."

On LG John Mills playing left tackle: "I think the biggest thing was they were a bull rush team, and John's pretty stout, so we felt like they weren't really using a speed rush most of the game, and they weren't really lining up too wide. So John [Mills] was probably the more stout guy. It was almost like playing guardian tackle for a little bit in the way the game was being played. So he did a really good job there. But I thought that overall, the way we blocked some of our counter plays was really good for us today. I thought our tight ends did a good job in the run game, which I think added a nice dimension, and then some of those RPOs."

On coaching players on mistakes: "Yeah, if it was just one thing, that would be great. Then we could make that correction and have it where we want it. But right now, it's like we're taking turns a little bit, so maybe there's an opportunity to break in on a choice route, and we break out, and the quarterback thinks we're breaking in, and then you get frozen because now you're stuck with the ball. Maybe you take a sack, or maybe there's a time that we have an expectation to throw the ball to this side of the field, and we have the look, but we get we go to the other side of the field for some reason. Or maybe there's a time that we get double A gap pressure, and our running back has to step up and gets pushed back into the quarterback. So while maybe the pass routes opened, we weren't able to step into the throw or get the ball out, and there's a combination of things that go into third downs, and unfortunately the combination just hasn't clicked. It's been one or the other, and when you get the pocket collapsing on Demond [Williams Jr.], and he has to get flushed, there's some opportunities that we have to make outside the pocket as well."

On QB Demond Williams Jr. holding on to the ball too long: "Well there's a lot. I know I sound like a broken record in terms of there's a lot to it, but each play is its own play. So holding on to the ball in one play might be because nobody was over. Holding on to the ball in another play might have been because he didn't trust his reach, holding on to the ball. Another play might have been he got flushed out of the pocket and had to go left, and then he kind of got stuck in a way that he had to hold the ball. So we're working through all of that. We don't want to hold the ball. We don't want to not take our shots. We don't want to not press the ball down the field. We definitely want to find those easier throws, but also make the throws where he's in and out of the pocket. But just we have to avoid the sacks because the sacks put you in that negative situation where either a penalty can arise because you're holding on to the ball too long, or you get to a second and 16 or a third and 15, and now you're looking at how it's pretty difficult to convert on that. I think we were like that for the first part of the game. I think we were averaging seven and a half yards on third down."

On if QB Demond Williams Jr. played to his standard: "I would say we're all continuing to raise our standards. So whatever standard we played at this week, we're going to raise the standard to play at a higher standard next week. Whatever standard we play at next week, we're going to continue to raise the standard. We kind of believe in going from good to better to best, back to good, and then continue to reset. In this case, we have to reset. We have to figure out what it is to enable him to feel like he could play the perfect game. And while we're chasing that, we'll see if greatness comes in the way."

On RB Brian Bonner Jr. and the run game: "It was really Brian Bonner. I'm really proud of him, and I don't want to sound like the proud dad type, but Brian is young, fun to be around and always learning. I think if you're a typical 18-year-old kid that's on social media a lot. We've been told for a few weeks that you can't run the ball and that we're not running the ball, but he just kept getting better and better. And today he goes out there and runs for 90 yards and runs really hard, and was able to ignore any noise and recognize that 'this is my first year doing this, and I'm learning the reads as we go.' As I'm going, I'm seeing somebody lose late or win late, and it gave us a lot of confidence in moving the ball and calling plays because we felt really good that we had a running back there this week that felt really comfortable running the football confidently."

On third down conversions: "I wish there was an answer to that because we would do it. We would definitely do it. We got ourselves in a spot today. I think we had a third and three again last week. We had a third and three. You have to convert third and threes. You have to convert third and threes. If you get seven yards in the first two downs. You have to convert. The other thing is you have to be able to generate some yards on that second down. So on first and 10, we ran a little quarterback run that got us six and a half. Now it's second and three and a half, and we get a half yard game, right? And now you're in third and three, so now you have to convert to third and three. Now you're in more of a pass down because you just ran it twice and didn't get more than seven. There's been a different set of circumstances, so we're just going to continue to find the circumstances that give us the best chance to succeed."

Demond Williams Jr, QB

On the fumble resulting in a USC touchdown: "I was trying to just create a play right there on the scramble. Third down, trying to get to my back on the scramble, just double clutched it. When I pulled it back, I got hit in my arm, and I just can't do that. I have hard ways to put our team in better positions to win and turn the ball over back-to-back weeks on fundamentally scramble drills and understand when the play is there. I'm just hurting for my team."

On closing the gap in a close game: "Just myself really. Flyers have to be better and not make mistakes. They add up over a game, regardless of who we were running against. Saw it last week, saw it this week, so I just have to be better."

On his completion to WR Chris Lawson in the fourth quarter: "They took away my first and second read. So once it became a scramble, I knew I was hot to my right side and kind of just gave my guy a chance on fourth down to go make it perfect."

On maintaining momentum throughout the game: "We talk about it so much and put so much work in on starting fast. We just have to be able to go back to the drawing board and just keep working hard. Obviously, we're not working hard enough, it's not showing up on Saturday, so you have to go back to the drawing board and be better."

On RB Brian Bonner Jr. and the run game: "They played amazing. The offensive line played amazing. Brian [Bonner Jr.] played amazing. I told him he was made for moments like this. And for him to go out there and play at the level that he played, I'm so proud of him and what he's done."

On the last play of the game: "We were just trying to get a double move and did a one-on-one. It's a shot that is going really on that fourth and long."

On what he saw in the play he was sacked: "I saw they had six up to our five man pro, and I knew I had to make one miss. But situationally, I just have to know to either throw it away or get somebody going to one another and take my loss of yardage."

On what resilience means to him: "You have to go back to the drawing board and try to go get a win. It's the Big 10. No teams giving in on any given Saturday, at any moment. So we know we play on a Friday, so we have a short week. So we have to be able to put this behind us and move forward."

Jacob Manu, LB

On closing the gap in a close game: "I just want to add on that. This is not on Demond [Williams Jr.]. As a team, we all have plays that we wish you got back. But we just have to progress, we aren't done yet."

On what he would tell the team after the game: "I'm very confident in our team. I feel like throughout the whole game, we thought we were going to win the game. I loved this team fighting to the last side of the game."

On team preparation for playing USC: "I feel like nothing changed for us. We just knew we had to do our job and make the play."