For nearly a half hour Thursday, and for the first time since USC's bowl game in late December, head coach Lincoln Riley took questions from reporters, largely focused on the new defensive staff he assembled this offseason.

Those new additions -- defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn, co-DC/defensive line coach Eric Henderson, linebackers coach Matt Entz and secondary coach Doug Belk -- also spent upwards of a half hour each talking with media.

Riley emphasized how the target for him was to hire the best collection of talent developers he could find on the defensive side as the program looks to emphasize building around high school talent and giving those prospects/players every reason to not just sign with USC but stay for the duration of their collegiate careers to benefit from the development available by the staff here.

"We literally started with, we rolled the white board back there to my office and we said ... our goal in the beginning was we had to find the right coordinator and then we want to have the best developers -- who do we think are like the best developers of defensive talent, culture, all of that, who are the very best?" Riley said. "We ended up with seven names on the board and it was kind of just the dream list, right? It was like, if you could get anybody, who would it be? We ended up whittling it down to seven and we ended up hiring four of the seven, so we batted a pretty decent percentage."

Riley talked a little bit about each of the new additions, especially how he was able to pry Henderson away from a comfortable job as defensive line coach for the Los Angeles Rams and how the Trojans got Entz to leave a head coaching job at North Dakota State to be a position coach here. Riley touched on his own desire to double down on his commitment to coaching at USC rather than looking at the NFL, the Trojans' quarterback situation in the spring and other topics.

Watch the full interview here and scroll down for a complete transcript of his comments ...

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With Matt Entz and Eric Henderson, how did you know they were even gettable and what was the process of convincing them to leave good jobs to come here?

"It was two very different situations. Had some mutual contacts in the business where we thought that Matt might be interested in moving to this level of a program for the right opportunity, and yeah, just kind of started with a conversation to share our vision with him and listen to his vision for his career and what he wanted to do. I didn't really have any expectations going into the first conversation. I didn't totally know what to expect with his track record and all that he's done, but I knew it was something that intrigued me. The defensive impact and the linebacker development and all that was intriguing -- there's a lot of guys that were intriguing from that standpoint -- but you add in where we're at as a program, that we're still certainly on our climb and still building in a lot of ways, you think of programs across the country that have built a consistent winner, a culture of toughness, guys that have really developed players at a really high level, you think of North Dakota State, you think of the coaches that have been there, the players that have been there, and that's one of the ones that always came to my mind. So to be able to add him from that perspective just to our program in general and not just our linebacker room or not just our defense, to me made it a no-brainer if it fit for him and his family. And then it turned out after the first conversation he was just as excited about it as I was. So that one actually moved along pretty quickly, which was great.

"And Eric, had some mutual connection with Coach Lynn. Another one that with where he was at, the defensive line coach with the Rams, you're coaching with one of the best coaches in the NFL, you're coaching maybe the greatest defensive lineman that's ever played the game, I mean, there was a lot of 'OK, does this fit?' as well. But, once again, that's why you have the conversations and that's why you shoot big. We told everybody that's what we were going to do in the beginning. We literally started with, we rolled the white board back there to my office and we said ... our goal in the beginning was we had to find the right coordinator and then we want to have the best developers -- who do we think are like the best developers of defensive talent, culture, all of that, who are the very best? We ended up with seven names on the board and it was kind of just the dream list, right? It was like, if you could get anybody, who would it be? We ended up whittling it down to seven and we ended up hiring four of the seven, so we batted a pretty decent percentage."

How have they impacted the program in the short time they've been here?

"It's been really, really good. A lot of it's been recruiting, so I've had a chance to be on the road with some of those guys, and even in the times when we weren't on the road together you could feel the impact. When you go hire guys like this, people take notice, recruits take notice, our current players take notice. So you can feel kind of a shot of momentum in a lot of ways that I think is exciting for everybody involved in this football program. And it's been great here just the last couple of weeks to finally be able to all get in the meeting room together. With Eric, with his season going on so long with the Rams like it did, it really wasn't until after all of the January recruiting period that we were able to actually get everybody in there in a room and start installing and going through it all. That part's been great. There's a lot of cool kind of synergy in that room already, a lot of very creative guys, a lot of guys from different backgrounds, and then I think Coach Lynn up to this point has done a great job managing and bringing everybody together."

What does the co-defensive coordinator title for Eric Henderson mean for he and D'Anton Lynn?

"Well, the defense is D'Anton's vision. D'Anton's the defensive coordinator. There's no split duties there. He's the defensive coordinator and he's going to set the direction. He'll be the ultimate decision-maker in that room. Now, bringing in somebody of Eric's caliber, it would be crazy to not lean on him and his experience. His track record obviously speaks for itself, so certainly, we felt like he was very deserving of that title. And certainly we're going to lean on him like we're going to lean on all of the other guys in the room. That's what's fun -- I know D'Anton's really excited, and you guys will get a chance to visit with him here later, but you look in that room and it's like you add a defensive coordinator in Doug Belk, you add a head coach in Matt Entz, you add somebody with Eric's experience, obviously bring back Shaun Nua, who we all think a lot about. It's like, you've got a really good minds in that, a lot of guys who have seen a lot, a lot of guys who have been responsible for a lot.

"And that's a great feeling for a coordinator when you feel like you have guys in the room who are going to be able to give you impactful feedback and are not just yes guys. I think that's important, but you've got to have guys at the end of the day who walk out of the room on the same page, which we will. And then you've got to have a defensive coordinator in Coach Lynn that wants to bring in that caliber of guys, wants to listen and wants to be very collaborative -- and it will be. I just think it's fit well together, and he's got a great personality to really mesh the room."

How do you assess talent developers when trying to find those guys in the hiring process?

"Well, I think you look at the production of the players that they've coached over time. Like to me, anybody can get just one great player, and sure, you were good and productive while you had this one guy or this one set of guys, but who's been able to do it consistently over time. That's what we really looked at was guys who impressed us from afar, whether it was from a coordinator job or it was from coaching a position that you felt like their experience level added up, the production over time of their players year over year was at a high level, and I think that's been the easiest way for us to assess it. A lot of these guys we had mutual connections with and that certainly helps when you're talking the character of a guy, when you're talking about how well does he fit in the staff room with everybody. So there's a lot that goes in that assessment, and certainly obviously the recruiting piece is a part as well.

"The development side for us was huge because I think we're at a little bit of a point in the program where we're starting to, I think, not get away but probably evolve a little bit away from the transfer portal and starting to get more into really building through high school recruiting. But the only way that model works is you've got to have what I think -- you go get the best developers of talent and you give the best high school players a reason for why they would want to sign with USC and not just sign here, not just come here initially but hopefully for a large majority of those guys stay here throughout their careers and get on that climb. When you have great developers, that's how you put that together, so putting this staff together we tried to keep that in the forefront of our minds. Because we knew, listen at some point we knew we wanted to push away from the portal much more than we did the first few years. And I wouldn't take back anything we've done the first few years -- I think we did what we had to do to get this thing competitive, but in the long run we want developers and we want the majority of our players that start their career and end their career in this football program."