In his final media availability before his No. 11-ranked USC Trojans travel to No. 18 Michigan, coach Lincoln Riley covered a range of topics on his weekly Thursday Zoom call with reporters.

Riley talked about the areas he wants to see improve on special teams, his experience so far coaching with defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn, thoughts on tight end Lake McRee, running back Woody Marks, wide receiver Zachariah Branch and more, the impact of the early success this season on recruiting and much more.

Riley also discussed how his staff planned for the logistics of these long Big Ten trips to places such as Michigan, Minnesota and Maryland this year.

The Trojans aren't flying to Michigan until Friday and plan to maintain a day-before departure plan for all road games.

"A lot went into this. There was definitely a lot of conversations and time spent with both college teams and especially NFL teams, because they do these types of trips a lot more often than we do. We're lucky to have obviously two teams right here in town that we were able to spend a decent amount of time with on this subject -- both logistics, the science behind when you travel, the nutrition, everything from a physical standpoint for the guys," he said. "So yeah, we settled in pretty quickly on continuing to leave the day before the game. So we will leave a little bit early and that was something we all feel very confident with. ...

"We sent people out early on in the spring to get to these different locations, especially this year because it is a lot of new locations for us, whether it's scouting out hotels or routes or just anything that's unique about the travel that we have to keep in mind. Because at that point you know where you're going, you get an idea of where you're going to stay, but you don't know game time a lot of times so you've got to be ready to adapt. So, yeah, we're confident in our travels and our plans, being able to handle it."

Riley is not taking the team to the Big House to get a look inside the stadium on Friday, so they'll arrive for their first looks on gameday.

"Yeah, some of it is I think, are you playing indoors or outdoors? I've always been a believer that playing indoors is a little different because when you're looking up or you're fielding a ball just the optics indoor are a little bit different. The sky looks pretty much the same from anywhere," he said. "And some of it too is just based on game time the next day, how much available time do you have? How easy is it to fly in somewhere, transport what becomes 150-175 people to a stadium and then get them back to where you're staying and go through your routines?

"So some of it at some point becomes, all right, is it worth it to go burn an hour and a half and have these dudes on the bus a bunch more, especially after they just got off a 3.5 or 4-hour flight? Is there part of you at times that would love to take guys over to get a quick peak at every stadium you haven't been in? Sure, I think there could be some benefit, but you got to weigh it and each scenario is just a little bit different."

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

Do you recall your first impression of Lake McRee when you got here and has he exceeded what you thought he could become?

"Yeah, I'd been around him a little bit. He actually came up and visited us at Oklahoma, so I got a chance to meet him there and I remember we really liked him as a player. I was excited when I got here and saw that he was on the roster and kind of on his way to getting back healthy. I remember a really versatile player in high school that doesn't really surprise me the player he's turned himself into. I think you just look at the adversity that the guy's overcome, had a lot of adversity in the beginning and then obviously having the injury last year right before the bowl game. He just kind of keeps bouncing back. He's incredibly tough, resilient, a smart player. I think the first impressions were, yeah, he was really talented. We just had to get him back healthy and just kind of back in shape and going again. But you could see he had some ability and a good mind and a good soul for the game, and he always has."

What did you want to improve on special teams-wise over the bye?

"I think the punt return unit has definitely been one that we've tried to focus in on. Hopefully, it's one we get to use a lot as the season goes on, but we've got some good weapons there so we need to do better. We've had a couple opportunities on kickoff return -- we had the one big one vs. LSU -- but thought we maybe missed one or two opportunities there as well. And just continuing to improve to develop depth, to work on things you're going to see from all these upcoming opponents. We feel like that should be a weapon for us. We've done some good things in the first few games, but we've got big expectations there as we do on the other sides of the ball."

What do you remember about coaching on the road at Ohio State years ago and anything you can apply to this one?

"Learned? I don't know, that was just my second game as a head coach and it was a big game at the time, like this one is. Two really good football teams, like this one is. You're going into a tough road venue kind of like that one was. So yeah, it just reinforced the idea you've got to embrace the road, you've got to be able to handle the ups and downs, the momentum swings that are different when you play in road ball, especially in good atmospheres. You've got to be a really tough-minded, physical, committed group to be able to go win games like this one the road. Yeah, really fond memories of that one and a lot to learn from, but obviously there's a lot different as well."

How has proof of concept from the success this year helped recruiting?

"Well, I'm optimistic that we're going to have a strong finish to the class regardless of how this whole thing plays out. I think, yeah, sure the proof of concept at some point absolutely matters. People want to see progress, they want to see differences with the things that you're doing on the field, off the field, and I just continue to point to those. They're apparent in every single part of our program. They're apparent in recruiting, they're apparent in facilities, they're apparent on the field, apparent in, you look at the next couple of games here at the Coliseum are sold out. They're apparent in our leadership from university standpoint and an athletic department, both have been just incredibly supportive of us. Yeah, I can't think of one example where you don't see massive progress, and we just want to keep growing and that's going to continue to affect recruiting and all other parts of our program."