Everything Lincoln Riley said after USC's Thursday practice

After practice Thursday, USC coach Lincoln Riley had his final media availability for the week.

He talked about freshman tight end Walker Lyons' adjustment the last few months coming off a year-long LDS mission and time away from football, the development of defensive lineman Devan Thompkins, his offensive philosophy and more.

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

How has Walker Lyons reacclimated after missing so much football time?

"It’s great to get him back. It’s such a unique story. You sign a guy, and then you don’t see him for a year and a half. We had to do our facetime calls with him at unique times of the day. I think it’s a nine-hour time difference, if I remember correctly. We would do our calls in te morning a lot of times, and he’d be getting ready to go to bed, just to check on him. Yeah, it’s great to have him back. He did a good job, I think, of staying in shape while on his mission. You can tell he didn’t come back crazy out of shape. Now there’s a big difference between working out and getting back into it. He’s handled it well. He’s a tough kid. He’s a talented kid. He’s eager. He’s learned. We were able to do a lot of offensive or early offensive teaching while he was abroad, being able to do that virtually. I think that helped him a bit. So yeah, he’s handled it well. There will be – and has been and will continue to be some acclimation for him, just getting back into the shape, the speed, the physicality. But he’s taken to it quick. I would say, how he’s been in camp has been pretty impressive, considering the circumstances."

What is the status of Braylan Shelby and Kameryn Fountain?

"Same for both. We don’t have anybody other than Maliki Crawford that’s long term."

How is Devan Thompkins progressing?

"Thompkins, he’s done well. He’s one of those guys that’s really been transformed into the weight room. He’s been a standout scout team player for us the past few years. He’s at times been one that’s given our O-line fits. I think how we’re playing fits him. I think schematically fits him. He’s got a little more confidence right now in his body, what we’re doing schematically. You can kind of tell, some of those guys that have been with us a few years, that work is starting to add up. He’s got a little confidence and swagger about him. I think that’s been a lot of it in the past. At times, he’s been good enough, but he’s got to believe that too. He’s the most important one. I think he believes in himself more than he ever has. He’s playing more confident, more aggressive. I know both Henny and Nua have been very impressed with him."

How has your offensive philosophy evolved since East Carolina?

"To me it’s always been about, how can we find advantages with the cards we have. At East Carolina, for the most part, our personnel wasn’t as good as everyone we played. We had to figure out a way to beat the NC States and the Carolinas and the Virignia Techs of the world with personnel – and certainly depth – that didn’t look liek theirs. At the time, I thought that was the best advantage. As the years went on, both at OU and here, it’s changed at different times. Then certainly when you become a head coach, you think even bigger about it in terms of complementary football on both sides. What you’re doing offensively does it fit with what you’re doing defensively? What’s your plan of attack to win a game? What’s the offense’s role? Then combined with the skillsets you have and what you think is gonna make you effective to score points.

"To me, it’s just about winning. You ask people, I don’t look at stats. I don’t look at stats pre-game. I don’t even look at them postgame, other than just when I’m on the podium. The only reason I look at them is so I can reasonably answer some of y’alls questions. Like the traditional stats, how many yards, how many yards a guy threw for or rushed for or received – I don’t care about that. It’s irrelevant to me. There are stats that matter. The ones to me are the ones that define winning. Whatever offensively, defensively, special teams we have to do to win, that’s my mentality. But I don’t ever want to be limited to we only play one way. Because eventually somebody is going to keep you from playing that way or a situation is going to keep you from it, and you’re not going to be ready. Going into the Big Ten, we’re going to get into some new situations, and we’re going to have to have answers as a football team to be successful, and all of us are going to be a part of that."

What stats do you pay attention to most?

"More team stats. I don’t pay attention to individual stats. I don’t look a ton at yards. Yards to me, I’m not saying you can’t get anything from it, but it’s a little irrelevant to me. It doesn’t really tell the whole story. Yards per play are big ones. Third downs are big ones. Turnovers rre big ones. Obviously any of the big blocks on either side, sacks, tackles for loss, the things that show overall production. You can have a team that has 650 yards of offense, but ran 90 plays, they didn’t chew up any clock, and they stunk in the red zone. Somebody could look at that and say, oh they got 650 yards. Yeah, but they only scored 23 points, you know? Versus, you know, I’ve had times we’ve had 480 yards of offense in a game, but we scored 60. Sometimes the individual stats don’t tell the whole story."