On Thursday, Lincoln Riley had his final media availability until game week, joining reporters over Zoom for wide-ranging interview.

Riley talked about the growth he's seen in linebackers Mason Cobb and Eric Gentry, quarterback Miller Moss' cerebral strengths, whether Pete Carroll could have a role in the program now that he's going to be back teaching on campus, USC's use of NIL in high school recruiting and much more.

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

Lincoln Riley transcript:

Two-part linebacker question, Mason Cobb has talked about how Easton Mascarenas-Arnold has taken pressure off him and freed him up. What have you seen different in Mason? And how does this scheme better take advantage of Eric Gentry’s skill set?

“Yeah, for Mason – yeah, I think having Easton here has in some ways, maybe, lightened the load, probably in some ways from a leadership standpoint. And I think, even on the field as well, they’ve pushed and challenged each other. Both of those guys have played a good amount of ball. And, they’re both coming in here learning a new system, and so, but, they’ve kinda fed off of each other and kinda challenged each other at the same time, and you can see that. So, yeah, I do feel what Mason’s saying, I believe it to be accurate. So that’s been a good pairing so far.

“Yeah, for Eric, he’s obviously a unique skill set. Never really had a linebacker with a skillset like him. I think two-parter – I think this scheme does fit him. I think this defensive staff’s creativity, particularly Coach Lynn and his vision, it allows us to do a lot of different things with him, and tailor some roles that we feel like he can be really successful in. So I think that’s been a positive. I think the fresh start, for him, with a new defensive staff, has been a positive. He’s developed some strong relationships already. And then I think, I think some of it is – Eric is growing up. And he’s, regardless of who’s coaching him, I think he’s strung together some good periods of practice here where he’s been really steady, really consistent, and like most of the guys here that’s that challenge. But he’s, from spring on, he’s been pretty consistent. Hasn’t had many down days. He’s been the most consistent that he’s been in our time with him here.”

D’Anton’s talked about going slow to play fast defensively, how would you assess communication of defense?

“Yeah, communication’s good. Excited about the way we’re communicating, excited about the limited number of busts that we’ve had, and I think that was a – we were very intentional about that in the beginning, like he’s talked about, like I’ve talked about. I think we, instead of trying to put too much in in the beginning, it was more – go slow, put things in, but have a high level of, like a high standard of, performance, like, high expectations from the beginning. Like, okay, we don’t have much in, we’re going really slow, we’re going to be very detailed, we’re going to learn it. But because of that, there shouldn’t be busts. As opposed to – you go out there and try to put in 15 things, and you kind of understand there’s going to be some busts, but you’re getting 15 things put in. And so, the standard from the beginning was, we’re going to go at a pace where you guys are going to be able to learn it.

"And then, you should hit the field and there should be very minimal communication busts, very minimal scheme busts. And then, as they’ve gotten it, then we’ve just kinda, slowly added and added. And yeah, we’ve got the things in now that we want to have in. They have communicated well on the field, we’ve tried to challenge them in the situations that we’ve put them in and we’ll continue to do so. But so far through the installation, it feels like something that our guys have handled very well.”

Any chance you could see Pete Carroll coming in as an analyst?

“I’d love to have him. He’s great. He’s been, Coach has been great to me. We’ve had a chance to catch up pretty often, check in with each other. He’s been a great resource, and a great person to be able to pick his brain. And he’s been very good to me, so, yeah, shoot. I’m excited he’s going to be here more. We’d be crazy to not take advantage of having him around, so, whether it’s in an official role or not – he’s made it very clear that we’ve got a good, open line of communication. It’s one that I appreciate and respect very much, and will always never hesitate to pick up the phone and call him or to reach out to him, because of obviously how successful he was as a coach and he’s obviously got a great knowledge of this place. So, I’ve been appreciative of his help and his friendship, and be glad to have him around a lot more.”