USC coach Lincoln Riley held his only media availability of the week Tuesday morning after practice, looking ahead to the Pac-12 championship game Friday vs. Utah.

Riley talked about getting a rematch with Utah, which dealt the Trojans their only loss, the dynamics of playing the same team twice in a season, how his team took that setback and responded from it, linebacker Eric Gentry's impact last week in his return and running back Austin Jones' work ethic when he wasn't getting much playing time.

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

With so much at stake this week, what do you want the focus to be for your team?

"It's just football. It's just football. Everybody sees that now, but in reality all the games have had that much at stake on them because if you don't win those then you're not even playing in this one. You're at home and getting ready to go out and recruit and players aren't practicing, like 99 percent of the other teams out there. So it's a privilege to be able to practice right now, to have a game this week. We've progressed as a team and we'll continue to do it, but for us, it's playing ball. It's what this team enjoys to do, we've gotten better and we need to take those steps again this week and take the same steps we've had."

Is it ironic that it comes down to playing the one team that beat you this season?

"It's great that it worked out that way. I mean, it's a championship game, you're going to play a good team regardless. I don't think we would be any more or less excited if it was anybody else. I've actually been in this situation twice where one of the teams that got us during the year, we ended up playing later on. This is not a revenge game -- that's not what this is. We played a really good football game, as did Utah, up in Salt Lake. It was an elite college football game, it came down to one play here or there, they got us that time. But this is not about that game. This is a new game, a new challenge, a new setting. Teams have evolved, both teams have changed certainly throughout the year. So this is about that and obviously the opportunities ahead."