Starting late than many college programs this year, USC finally kicked off spring Tuesday with the first of 15 practices.

The Trojans, of course, weren't in full pads on Day 1, but more importantly than the 20 minutes or so of position drills media were inside the fence to watch, this was the first chance to ask head coach Lincoln Riley about his team since early February.

Riley talked about quarterback Jayden Maiava finding added confidence/comfort this year, what he's seen from freshman QB Husan Longstreet and transfer QB Sam Huard, the wide-open battle on the offensive line, the depth at linebacker, Elijah Newby's move to the edge and more.

Watch the full interview here and scroll down for a complete transcript of Riley's comments.

Also join the discussion on Trojan Talk board and see our notes and takeaways from practice!

Do you a different level of comfort in Jayden Maiava now that he's not in that four-game sort of audition period?

"You certainly do. I think he’s more confident in himself as a player, his ability to execute our offense. He’s more confident in the relationships he’s built with his teammates. It was a unique situation last year. You come in towards the end of the year, and you become the starter. That’s a tricky position to be in, and I thought he handled it really well. But you certainly seem him just more confident, more assertive as a leader and a player now. That’s what we need him to be."

What have you seen from Jahkeem Stewart and has he showed that he'll be able to contribute this year?

"I think he’s – physically, there’s no doubt he’s going to have an opportunity to help. It’ll just be about his progress out here. He’s a big, strong kid. You look at the way the kid tests, both in movements and in strength, like there’s nothing that’s going to hold him back from being able to contribute early in his career. It’ll ultimately be, for him, how fast he can pick up the defense. How well he can adjust to playing against college level defensive linemen, and obviously, him being here in the spring is huge. He’s an attentive guy. He’s in the facility darn near all day now. We’re always just seeing him with one of the coaches or around the staff. He’s really working hard at it. First day, non-pads, so those are the toughest to evaluate Day 1. But he’s got the talent to do it, and now it’s just going to be putting in the work and building him up to be a consistent enough player to trust to put him out there on Saturday."

Will we see Anthony Lucas at all this spring?

"Possibly, a little bit at the end. It certainly won’t be full contact or full speed, but we hope to be able to push him into some individual at the end. We’re being smart with it. If the timeline was a little bit different, we might push it a little bit more. But time is our friend right now. He’s had a great recovery and rehabilitation process to this point, and we want to make sure that continues."

How did you see Jayden attack the last couple months and developing as a QB and leader?

"You hear the term that someone is their own toughest critic, and he’s a guy who sometimes, he can almost overdo it. He’s not one that you worry about getting complacent. Or not wanting to work on the areas he knows he wants to attack and put in the necessary time and effort. For him, it’s more, don’t be so hard on yourself. We’ll be plenty hard enough on you. Make sure you give yourself credit for the big-time plays you have made and the progress you have made as well. So for him, it’s a little bit that balance. He naturally has that ability to really be critical of himself, to really put everything he can into the areas he doesn’t. You’re never going to see him like, oh, I’m so good at this, I’m going to take it for granted and not put work into it. Like he’s the complete opposite of that. Which is great. He’s a driven worker, and he wants to play a lot better for us than he did last year. And he played pretty darn good. So that’s a pretty good sign."

How do you see the linebacker group?

"It’s one of the more thin groups on the team. But it’s also a group where we’re really excited about the talent. Really excited about who’s coaching them, the whole thing. Obviously Eric being back healthy, moving around great right now, is a great thing. Obviously he’s an impactful player for us, and he’s got a lot that he can get better at. I think Rob will be really good for Eric. We were excited obviously about how Desman Stephens played as a freshman. Not just the games, but the practice, the whole thing. Certainly leads us to believe that he’s ready for a bigger role. Jadyn Walker came in late in the year after a shoulder surgery coming in and wasn’t really able to do much early in the year. Was able to contribute some for us there at the end, and we were pretty excited about what we saw with him. This will be a big spring for Jadyn. Obviously moving Beavers down was a great thing. We’ve been close to doing it at other times, but at other times, we felt like we didn’t have the depth at safety to make that move. But he’s one of the best tacklers on the team, one of our strongest leaders, a really consistent player. So I think that’s going to be a great move for him. So yeah, that’s kind of the room. We’ve got two great guys in Quintanar and Roman Marchetti who were really good special teams players for us as well. So it’s a good room. We’ll obviously get some freshmen here in a couple months, but I like the talent. I like the competition. We’re going to really be looking for the depth that we know we’re going to need to make the run we expect to make."

How do you feel about the O-line?

"I feel good. It's one of those that could play out a lot of different ways right now. You've got a couple of guys certainly in Alani with the way he played at the end of the year and then obviously Paige that you feel like are guys that are going to handle that left tackle and right guard spot. And then after that, it's kind of a toss up to be honest. There will be a lot of competition within the room. We have probably more guys right now that can play multiple positions than what we've had, we probably have more depth than what we've had, we have a few more centers than what we've had. So I'm excited about the room, excited about the competition, the new guys that we've brought in I think have brought some experience and added to the group. And then some of the guys that were able to play at the end of the year, play in the A&M game like Tobias and Justin and those guys, Kilian showed us some things that we were pretty excited about leading into this offseason."

Where is Husan Longstreet at in his development as a true freshman and what has Sam Huard shown you?

"Husan is further ahead than most freshman at this time. I mean, the advantage of being able to come in for a little bit of the bowl practice, to be in some of those meetings, to set up where this wasn't his first actual college practice today was pretty cool. And then he did a great job of taking advantage of being a local guy, and he was here as much as the rules would allow. He came to a lot of meetings, came to a lot of practices on his own time, on his own dime. And it's paid off because he's way further ahead than most guys would be at this age. So his ability to communicate and manage the group right now as a young guy is pretty impressive.

"And I would say a lot of the same for Sam. If he can overcome getting coached by his uncle, he's got a shot. Sam is, you can tell, he's just a football guy, right? You can tell it's what he grew up around. You can tell that he's been in college football, that he's had to learn systems. Like, he just picks stuff up and communicates effortlessly, which is what we expected and hoped to get out of him. So, fun room to coach right now."

What are you looking for from Elijah Newby?

"We're excited to see. We're going to work him on the edge a lot here this spring, we're going to move him around and try to use that skill set because it's a really unique skill set. We've obviously, as you guys I think have seen, the roster and some of the new kinds of weights and how these guys' bodies have changed, we've put some weight on him. He looks good carrying it around, so trying to find that right position and right role with him. There's no doubt he's got the talent, the mindset -- like, there's definitely a role, this guy's going to make an impact. It's us and him kind of finding that right spot. So we're going to work him a little more on the edge this spring, so he'll be working with Coach Nua and Coach Henny a lot and then still doing things within our packages to take advantage of his athleticism."

Who are some other leaders who are emerging?

"I would put Kilian in that group, for sure. I would put Kamari in that group, for sure. I would definitely put Jayden in that group right now. Let me go through ... I think Eric has come a long way as a leader, I think a young guy like a Des Stephens has a chance to grow into a really good leader. You see some of those qualities in him. I think Christian Pierce has a chance to grow into a really good leader. He's got some alpha-like qualities. He was our most impactful player on special teams last year and really has had a great offseason. I think he's primed to take a major role in the secondary. There's a lot of them. I think of like the guys we recruited and brought in specifically, this year's freshmen and last year's class, you look at some of the guys you feel like upcoming are going to be leaders and you're like, man, there's a lot of them. Which, in my experience, when you start to feel that way about your classes that's typically a pretty good sign."