USC coach Lincoln Riley held his weekly Thursday morning Zoom call with reporters for some final questions and answers before the No. 7 Trojans take on No. 16 UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

Riley provided a vague but encouraging update on the status of injured linebacker Eric Gentry and wide receiver Mario Williams, who have each missed the last three games.

"They’ve progressed. I expect them to be available on Saturday," he said.

Now, what "available" means is anyone's guess. Best not to make any assumptions until the team comes out for pregame warmups Saturday.

Riley also talked about wide receiver Brenden Rice's season, what happens to the WR rotation when everyone is back to full strength, having a new 1A/1B situation at left tackle between Mason Murphy and Bobby Haskins, how Haskins is coping with the tragedy at his former program Virginia, and how USC is preparing for a UCLA defense that has had its defensive coordinator sidelined for a few weeks.

Here are Riley's full responses to all the questions Thursday:

What has led to the patience you all have showed Brenden Rice to be able to work through some drops and keep getting opportunities to make plays?

"He's been a really good practice player, and he's a guy that continues to really work at his craft. He's been excellent blocker for us, he's really been a difference-maker in the blocking game, and you're right he's made a number of big plays. I know he's got a couple that he'd love to have back from the year, but that's part of it. The key is he's been able to respond. I think the one-two punch of him and Ford out there at X has been, especially here in the back half of the season, has been important for us to get those guys going, for them to make some plays and they certainly have. You see what the kid does on the practice field, the way he works at it, it's been cool to see the improvement, and again, a lot more production out of that the last several weeks, which has been trending in a great direction."

What have you seen from the nickels the last few weeks with Latrell emerging a little bit?

"Kind of a position like the X receiver production offensively that we were wanting to get more production out of. We've played three guys there, Jaylin and Max obviously, Latrell, those guys have all had some really, really bright moments. All three of those guys have also had other roles on our defense as well, so as we've been rotating, and especially there when we got low on DBs for a while, we were able to dual-train a lot of those guys and they were able to play in different packages. So there's been a little bit more shuffling than maybe you would hope to have, but yeah, I think looking for production. That's the name of the game is those positions out there have to produce. We used the term last week, sharing with you guys, we don't want placeholders out there -- we want playmakers. You can guys that are in the right position, and that's good -- that's a good start, you've got to be lined up, you've got to be in the right position, you've got to run the call -- but you're going to get some amount of opportunities to make those plays, and you've got to have guys that make them when that opportunity shows itself.

"So we've continued to keep the competition ongoing, and I think that's a little bit the evolution of it. In spring and early in camp, it's probably as these guys are learning it, it's more, the guy does well, he's in the right spot all the time, that's pretty good, that's a good step. But now we're getting to the point where we're not inventing a bunch of new calls. Our guys know what we're going to do on both sides of the ball. The busts should go down and the playmaking should go up, and we've put that on the guys and said, hey, if you want to be on the field, you've got to be out there finishing plays and not just being in the right position."

How much more difficult has it become to defend your offense with the other WRs stepping up in Jordan and Mario's offense?