After watching his No. 6-ranked USC football team keep San Jose State in the game until late in the third quarter, on the way to a 56-28 win, coach Lincoln Riley acknowledged it's just a starting point for the Trojans while feeling generally positive about what he saw.

"We're excited to be 1-0, we've got a lot of work to do, which we knew was going to be the case anyway, and we will get up in the morning and get back to attacking it and look forward to be back in here in a week," Riley said.

Riley was asked about freshman Zachariah Branch's two-touchdown debut, the consistent rotating along the offensive line and of course questions about the defensive performance.

Watch the full postgame press conference with Riley, QB Caleb Williams, Branch and LB Mason Cobb here and scroll down for a complete transcript of his comments.

RELATED: Share your reaction on our Trojan Talk board | Video interviews with USC players after the win over SJSU

Opening comments ...

"Good to be 1-0, like honestly I would say no matter what the score was tonight. Lot to be excited about, lot of work to do, excited about a lot of things that we saw out there tonight. The biggest disappointment was the end of half where we were really dominating the football game, and to kind of have the two series of bad football -- didn't move it there offensively, obviously clock became an issue, had a pretty good punt, solid punt and then busted the coverage there on the last play before half was inexcusable. Finishing in those moments when you've played a solid half and to give a team momentum like that coming in was obviously very disappointing.

"I like how we responded in the third quarter and the way that we play there. Got a chance to play a lot of guys tonight, which was a big focus. You saw a lot of lineup changes on both sides, probably as aggressively as we've done in a first game, which we felt like both kind of building for the future and in terms of what the guys had done through fall camp it was going to be important to play a lot of guys tonight. And we did that.

"So, yeah, listen, a lot to build on. There's some big plays on all sides of the ball, some huge plays on special teams, some great plays on both sides of the ball, but certainly wasn't near from a consistency standpoint, wasn't there. Credit to San Jose, that's a good football team. I went through the whole week, didn't get asked one question about San Jose in all the media I did in one week, which with a returning quarterback that has almost 50 starts and I think the No. 11 or 12 returning defense in the country, there was a respect factor I think for those guys in our locker room regardless of anything maybe overlooking them on the outside. So, good football team, coach has done an awesome, awesome job with that program. I can't say enough about him and the way those guys play. We're excited to be 1-0, we've got a lot of work to do, which we knew was going to be the case anyway, and we will get up in the morning and get back to attacking it and look forward to be back in here in a week."

​What's your evaluation of the defense, especially with a lot of new pieces, and the run defense with all the QB rushing yards?

"Yeah, quarterback's a good player. We called several things throughout the game. We had a spy on him a lot of times, and a couple times we got lost in there, got a little too aggressive and a couple times he'd just flat-out out run us. He's just a good player. That part was disappointing. I think the penalties and then the busted coverage before half, I mean those were the things you take what had the making of being a good defensive performance, but those are the mistakes you got to correct. Those are the self-inflicted errors, especially the penalties and especially the busted coverage before half. Because a handful of those drives had no momentum, those penalties were on big plays, and you can't give a good quarterback like that multiple chances.

"I like the way some of the young guys flew around. We had some young guys make some young guy mistakes too, which that's again a little bit to be expected, so we got to continue to grow. Excited about where it can be, but we've got a lot of work to do."

​What can you say about Zachariah's performance and when's the last time you had a true freshman in the press conference after his first game?

"Yeah, hadn't done it much, but once guys play then that's just part of it. It's not freshmen, it's not seniors in there -- it's just USC football players now and felt like that he earned it. Made an impact on offense, made an impact on special teams. I thought he did a good job not trying to do too much, which guys in their first game sometimes will do. I thought the patience -- especially on the return, you saw a lot of patience there, which was key. We talked about trusting going into this first game -- he was a great example of that and obviously heavily impacted the game."

What did all the offensive line shuffling say about where that unit is at right now?

"Well, a lot of it is for positive reason, but yeah, we've got some things to sort out. We've got multiple guys that are capable of being starters. This will be an interesting film to go back and look at, to see how some of those guys did. I thought they settled in some as the game went on. Yeah, we've got to obviously find that right combination, which we will, but specifically at the guard positions it will be interesting. There's going to be a lot of competition, and there's going to be not just that position but a lot of others right now going through. That's how we want it to be. We don't want guys feeling comfortable, we want guys pressing knowing that they need to get better for the team and they need to get better to continue to get reps. It will be expected of the O-line and every other group."

What did you think of the third-down offense and how much you relied on that?

"Yeah, that's every game, it's always a key stat. Probably the major difference in this game is they were 5 of 13, and when you count third and fourth downs they were 5 of 14, and we were pretty good offensively there. Defensive did a nice job on third and fourth downs, offense did a nice job staying on the field. We were pretty aggressive with it throughout the night. Yeah, that's important, it's the sign of a good offense, sign of a good defense, getting those stops. A lot of times third downs and turnovers are the name of the game and they certainly were again tonight."

​Is the defense is a concern again?

"Here we go with everybody's going to write the narrative after the first game. Listen, it's going to be a climb, right? It's going to be a climb. I like what I see out there in terms of our good plays and how our guys are flying around, the depth that we have. We will continue to improve. The baseline for that group, the ceiling for that group is much higher than it was 12 months ago. And no matter what the score was, if this was a three-point game, if it was a 28-point game, if it was a 50-point game there's going to be that climb to the next step. That's where our focus is going to stay, so I love what we have in there. It's kind of like Mason said and he's exactly right, a lot of work to do and we're the right people to get it done."