USC coach Lincoln Riley held his weekly Thursday morning Zoom call with reporters, providing some final updates and comments ahead of the No. 9 Trojans' home game vs. Cal on Saturday.
Riley provided a less-than-definitive update on the status of injured wide receiver Jordan Addison and linebackers Eric Gentry and Ralen Goforth, and talked about Kyle Ford, Tuli Tuipulotu, the closeness of this coaching staff, the matchup with Cal, the logic behind how he's structured the special teams coaching and thoughts on the upcoming recruiting/transfer cycle.
Read the full transcript of his comments below:
How did Kyle Ford not approach the situation as if he were being recruited over last offseason?
"It wasn't even really a conversation. We did add several receivers. But I think that any receiver if they think they're good enough and a good player, why would you not want to play in this? With the history that we've had offensively, the quarterbacks, and then you combine that with the history of this school offensively, quarterbacks, receiver position. To me the only reason to want to leave here would be if you just don't think you're good enough deep down. Kyle has belief in himself. He did some really nice things in the spring, we were really impressed. He probably would have been teed up to play more in the first half of the season if not for getting injured in camp. He had to miss probably the complete second half of camp, and time early in the season as well. So I mean you miss that much time, other guys step up, it's just the nature of the beast. It's just the nature of competitive athletics. But he has done a good job hanging in there, working, making the most of opportunities and has really clawed himself back into it and played at a high level for us the other night. If he continues to do that, he'll continue to earn more opportunities."
Tuli has said he doesn't necessarily feel like a leader or someone who stands out from the rest of the team, how have you seen him handle that role?
"The leader deal's interesting because you can't make somebody that they're not. And what Tuli's never going to be is he's never going to be an overly vocal leader. I don't think that's just his personality. But that doesn't mean he can't be a great leader. And in fact a lot of great leaders say very little and when they do talk it's impactful. I do think he's absolutely grown and embraced that role. There's times when we gotta get out in front and he's done it, he's talked to the team on a number of occassions, which I don't know if he would have done before. So he's got the confidence to do that and he understands that it can be impactful for this team. He's not our rah-rah guy, he's not a guy you're going to hear every day but he's had some really strong impactful moments with this team. I've seen him more vocal around his teammates, whether it's encouraging them or challenging them or anything in between. And so I've been impressed with him because he's had to get out of his comfort zone a little bit. And he's never going to be the most vocal guy in the room but we needed him to have an impact and he has and like the rest of this unit performing, leading, whatever, this closing stretch we're going to need him to have an even bigger impact."