Three days after a postgame blowup in which he yelled profanities on the Coliseum field, USC coach Lincoln Riley was considerably calmer when it came to Ohio State athletics director Ross Bjork.
In fact, Riley said his verbal dustup with Bjork was put behind him almost immediately after it happened.
“Yeah, not an issue — I mean, just typical emotions after the game,” Riley said Tuesday. “We squashed it on the way up the tunnel. Ross is a good guy, a really good AD. It’s really a non-issue.”
So what happened?
“That’s really all I’m going to say about it,” Riley said.
The altercation happened as the teams were leaving the field following USC’s 30-18 upset of the then-No. 2 Buckeyes on Saturday evening.
Amid a logjam of players, athletics staffers, coaches, family members and others heading toward the tunnel as students rushed the field, Riley and Bjork crossed paths while the USC coach was waiting to proceed with his family.
As security let people pass a checkpoint in a trickle, there was congestion — and tempers.
“Are you kidding me? F–k you!” Riley shouted at Bjork as the AD and a pack of Ohio State staffers walked past. “That’s bulls–t.”
Ohio State seemingly wanted to prioritize defensive end Eddrick Houston leaving the field with assistance after getting injured, making others wait. One Buckeyes staffer then made a gesture toward Riley to de-escalate the situation, at which point the mood seemed to soften.
There was another unusual development about a half hour later when Riley ended his postgame media availability with a prepared address in which he reiterated, “I’m the right person for this job.”
What made him feel that he needed to do that?
Riley said he was able to gather his thoughts during an unsually lengthy wait to speak with reporters.
“It was kind of a unique situation,” Riley said Tuesday, “because I got up to the locker room pretty quick — they got me off the field pretty quick. I had probably close to 30 minutes before we got the whole team in there, I mean, it was mayhem.
“It took for sure the longest it’s taken to get all the players in there, so I had really like 30 minutes in there to kind of sit down, process it all and I decided to jot down a few notes, and there was just a few things that I wanted to say and after the emotions of the game and all that, I wanted to be able to articulate a few of those things, and that’s why I wrote it down and that’s why I chose to say it.”
