Before anyone could ask Tuesday, USC coach Lincoln Riley rattled off his thoughts about the Trojans' first camp scrimmage from Sunday night.
He spotlighted redshirt freshman safety Zion Branch for making a pick-6 and a forced fumble and noted the defense won the day overall.
Riley talked about what that meant for the offensive line, who on offense caught his eye, the continued progress he's seen from cornerback Ceyair Wright and much more.
Watch the full interview here and scroll down for a complete transcript of his comments:
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Opening comments ...
"Good first scrimmage couple nights ago. Thought the guys handled it well. We were able to get a lot of reps, which is really good. We had close to 90 team reps. It was pretty much an offensive and defensive-based scrimmage. We worked some of the special teams – those weren't competitive yet. We’re not quite to that point of the install. So got a chance to really look at just about everybody on the roster.
"There were definitely some standouts from the scrimmage. Defensively, Zion Branch had a pick-6 and a forced fumble, really showed up well. He made some outstanding plays. If you ask me the one guy that really stood out, it was certainly Zion. Pretty cool obviously with his story. Didn’t have the ideal start to a career with the injury and just kind of fighting back from that physically and mentally. So it’s been cool to see him really gain some momentum here the last several practices.
"Overall, a lot of back and forth. Defensively certainly had the upper hand overall in the scrimmage. There were some bright moments, but a lot of inconsistency out of the offense. Defensively, made less mistakes and made more plays overall. Camp has kind of been like that. It’s been a lot of back and forth, kind of one side slightly has the upper hand one day and then it seems to go back and forth, which typically, your best teams, that’s a characteristic of it. Came out of the scrimmage pretty healthy, which is always a good thing when you have that many live snaps.
"I was pretty pleased with our tackling. A lot of times, the first scrimmage, the tackling is a weak area just because you’re out there in the open field for truly a number of snaps. It’s not thud. You’re not blowing a whistle. I thought we did a good job in space limiting some of the big plays offensively. I think we’re kind of in that week now, with our mock game week coming up next week, this is a big week for our guys. A lot of the reps you’re going to start putting into the different groups, offensively, defensively, special teams are going to start to narrow here toward the end of this week. So for guys who want to stake their claim for why they want to be on the field, this is go time. This is it.
"And the interesting thing is we certainly have, compared to 12 months back, there’s certainly more position battles right now. There are more positions where you look at it like, man, I could see this going several different directions. Just a healthier, more talented roster overall – and using the word healthy in terms of having a lot of competition and that competitive depth that we’ve talked about all offseason. You see that. Whether it’s guys that were here on our team last year or whether it’s newcomers, what it took to get on the field in certain positions, it’s a little bit different definition this time around.
"There’s no assumptions on what guys did at a different school or what guys did here or anywhere else. We really tried to stress that with the guys, it’s based on what we’re seeing on this field right now. Lot of battles and a lot of good players on the field that we’re excited about. Obviously, this is going to move quick into mock game week. This will be a big stretch. We’ll practice here the next couple days and really kind of conclude our camp with a scrimmage here this Saturday."
