USC held its first media availability of bowl prep Thursday, as the Trojans get ready for their Las Vegas Bowl matchup with Texas A&M on Dec. 27.

Coach Lincoln Riley was coy about which players will or will not play in the bowl game, but he covered a range of other topics from the transfer portal to the search for a new linebackers coach.

See all of his comments below and watch the full interview here.

Will Jonah Monheim and Emmanuel Pregnon play in the bowl game?

“We've got some guys that are working through decisions right now. We kind of made the decision instead of announcing it kind of here early, while some of those decisions are getting made that we're going to get a little bit closer to it to be able to give you all some clarity and we will announce all the guys that are playing as we get closer. But there's definitely still some back and forth with guys that have some decisions to make.”

How did you feel the receivers developed over the course of the season, and going forward as you're having conversations with those guys, what is the pitch to convince them to stick around going to next year?

“I don't know so much as convinced. I think as you lay out the things that we want to do and you lay out how we see them, and for every player now, every player's got to look at their own situation and decide if they see that as a fit. So we try not to get too attached to it. It's just kind of a world that we're in right now. So I mean, yeah, they're much convincing this school's history of receivers, our history of receivers, our history of throwing the ball to schools. I mean, there's really not any better place to go play. So I don't think the convincing is, I think it's more just looking for alignment, looking at guys' progression, making sure that we feel like it fits what we're going to need to continue to push to go forward and get better. And yeah, I mean I think we obviously had some really, really bright moments in the year. I know we definitely want to be a more consistently explosive group. We definitely want to continue to improve and I thought there were some guys in our room that made some big improvements and made some big plays as the season went along and it ended up kind of being a room where it was kind of just one guy one week and another guy the next week and it ended up being a little bit more of a shared responsibility and I could see going forward that start to narrow down a little bit more. And I think that's just kind of the way a little bit of the rosters and I think certainly as our roster continues to evolve, especially our tight end room and now you're talking about next year, in the future years, I can see the receiver room start to become a little bit more focused.”

Is that tough to balance when you have so many mouths to feed and at the end of the season, I'm sure there are schools saying, ‘Hey, well you didn't get a ton of opportunity here. We could give you more there.’Do you find that you're dealing with that conversation?

“Yeah, everybody is though. I mean, that's just symptomatic across college football. It's part of it. Receiver rooms have always been part of that because no matter how many balls you catch or targets you get, you're always going to do a lot more running routes that you don't get the ball, you're always going to do a lot more blocking when you do catching the ball. That's just the nature of the position. So we're confident in the room that we've built the room going forward. We've had to make some tough decisions and that's just part of the world right now.”

What did RB Bryan Jackson show you both early to get on the field then and then get out the season two?

“Yeah, he's been a pretty steady guy for a young guy. He's been able to learn our system. He's very smart. He came in with a good basis of knowledge and then his time spent here, he's been able to really pick up on things. And so I think we've had a confidence in him from the beginning that he knows what we're doing. He did some nice job for us on some of our special teams units and became enough of a factor there that we wanted to play him and honestly wanted to play him a little bit more offensively. We just ended up in so many close games and obviously Woody became such a bell cow throughout the year that just admittedly it was hard to take him off the field, but no, Bryan's I think earned the trust of us and knowing that he can handle all the different jobs of a running back in this offense and that he knows what to do and excited for him to continue to get further opportunities because I do believe he's going to be a very good player here.”

I know Jake Jensen's in the portal, but is the plan for him to be the backup in the bowl game?

“Yes. Yes. Jake will be the backup in the bowl game.”

Who will coach linebackers?

“Bryson Allen-Williams, he is on our staff. So coach, we call him coach BAW. He's taken over the backers, been a seamless transition. He was very heavily involved with our backers even before Coach Entz got the Fresno job and departed. So that's been seamless. Our guys have been excited about it. I know they'll play really hard for him.”

You mentioned tough decisions with guys in the portal, especially in relation to receiver. Is that so can we assume that the tough decisions that were made had to do with the exits of Kyron Hudson and Duce Robinson both?

“That was part of it. I don't want to get into guys' “individual decisions and just those, I think those conversations are private and that way I think it's just everybody's got to accept that it's the way of the world. The world understands that in the NFL that sometimes players make decisions to leave. Sometimes players get cut, sometimes there's not cap room. I mean the world understands that because they're used to it in the NFL, I think all of us, those in it and those outside are getting used to, this is college football now and we are trending certainly more in that direction, heavily in that direction. And so yeah, there's going to be tough decisions on both sides and that's why you can't get too emotionally attached to it. They're going to happen, they're going to, teams are going to adjust, players are going to adjust and everybody's going to move on. And that's just the way of the world right now. So it is what it is and we've got to all get used to it.”

When do you hope to have sort of a long-term decision linebacker coach?

“We're moving along pretty heavily in the process. I would say we're, we're hustling it, but we're not in a hurry. We have a little bit of time here leading up into our prep, obviously. So we've had a chance to work on it. Not surprisingly, we've got a pretty fun candidate list and I think has a chance to really come make a great impact. So it's starting to be able to have some of those more in depth interviews and visits with guys, and I think it helps us maybe even some this year after being a year in this defense, a year with Coach Lynn, seeing the rest of the staff that we have around it, I think it probably gives you a better idea as opposed to kind putting it together from scratch like we did last year of, alright, here's the other skill sets in the room. How can we find the best and most complimentary piece? So it's been exciting to kind of take a deep dive into that and obviously is striving to find the best person for it.”

Is coach is Coach BAW a candidate?

“He is. Yeah, for sure. I mean, he's a great young coach. He's going to be tremendous. His value here from day one has skyrocketed. I mean, he's a humble young guy. He's got great connections. He's been an active recruiter for us. He's going to be a tremendous coach. So whether this is his time here, it's somewhere else. I mean, you never know with him, but he's one of those guys you look at and say, hey, he's going to make it in this business. He's going to be a star in this business because of his work ethic, how invested he is in the players. You can tell his players really feel that. And that was why there was no hesitation to elevate him once the change was made.”