Vanderbilt defensive line transfer Nate Clifton was supposed to visit a different school last weekend, but then USC head coach Lincoln Riley showed up in Tennessee to visit him last Thursday.

That changed everything.

"That was the one and only head coach I saw during this whole entire process, so just that alone made me feel like a priority for the program," Clifton told TrojanSports.com. "And obviously, I don't have to speak for the man -- he's done amazing things with his college career -- and just an upfront, genuine person, and who wouldn't want to play for a guy like that?"

Riley pledged earlier this month that his top priority is on rebuilding USC's beleaguered defense, and it's hard not to notice the photos of posted to social media over the last couple weeks of him doing in-home visits with the Trojans' defensive commits, or that he was the one head coach to show up to see a highly-coveted defensive transfer like Clifton.

"Him coming to see me actually made me, I cancelled on someone else because I was already having a little bit of doubts in my head about another university, and when he came and made me feel like a commodity, like someone that they really needed a part of their team for next year, I asked him, I said, 'Do you have a spot this weekend?"" Clifton said.