Starting this week and continuing through the season, USC coach Lincoln Riley joins reporters over Zoom every Thursday morning for his final media session of the week.
Today, Riley talked extensively about how his trust and relationship with quarterback Caleb Williams has developed since last year, the impact linebacker Shane Lee has made as a leader, ditto for center Brett Neilon, what he's thought of the defense this preseason and more.
We have a full transcript of Riley's comments over 20 minutes of questions here:
What made Shane Lee a choice as leader for the defense?
Riley: "Honestly, our first conversation after he entered the transfer portal. I was out recruiting, we got on the phone, we had a great talk. It was a different talk than maybe a lot of guys that we recruit whether high school guy or transfer. This one was obviously we were looking for a guy we thought could come in and be a great contributor on defense and at the linebacker position. But certainly as we started putting together this roster, we started thinking more about who are some of the key guys who could come in and really spearhead this from a player perspective and lead. And as we started talking I talked a lot about that and he talked about what he was looking for both from a situation as a player and all of that, but a big part of his decision was an opportunity to come in and be a leader and be at the front of the room and be responsible for that from a player perspective.
"And it just clicked, man, that's the best way I can say it. Exactly what we wanted and needed was exactly what he wanted and needed. And I've told him since he's been here, I want him to err on the side of aggression. If we get to the end of this year and he was somehow too aggressive as a leader, we'll take that. We can't live or survive with the opposite of that. He can't be passive. He's got a great perspective. He's not a guy that has a million words but when he talks it's very impactful, it's very well thought out, very intentional. And you feel it with our guys when he speaks up and he's got great experience and he's got a great desire to not only have a great year individually, but most importantly to him is he wants to be a part of a championship team and he wants to be a part of the reason that the culture here was established in a very positive way. So he's been an ideal leader here, we're very fortunate that our worlds kind of collided and that we were both kind of looking for the same thing at the time."
