Seeing Kliff Kingsbury walk out to the USC practice field is still a bit of a surreal site for those that remember the roughly one month after the 2018 season when he was the Trojans' offensive coordinator, before bouncing to the NFL.

Kingsbury returned to USC in April as a senior offensive analyst for head coach Lincoln Riley after he was let go in January following four years as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals.

As he's not one of the Trojans' 10 full-fledged assistant coaches, he has not been made available for interviews and likely never will for however long his latest stint at USC lasts, but others around the program have offered insight into his role and contributions -- starting with the guy who hired him.

"Kliff's been great. It's been good to have him with us. He got there right after spring ball ended, so it's been great to have him here through summer. Good friend, great coach, another great guy to have in the staff room who brings obviously a lot of knowledge, not just from an offensive point of view but it's been very helpful for me to have a guy who has sat in that chair in terms of being a head coach both at the collegiate level and NFL level," Riley said.

"[He's] been awesome. Kliff already knew so many of the guys on our staff that a lot of those relationships were already in place, so in terms of kind of just fitting in with the guys it's been really seamless."