Cornerback Isaac Taylor-Stuart made his first interception of the season last week, but he didn't play at all down the stretch of the Trojans' loss to Oregon State.

After the game, as he limped out of the locker room, he acknowledge he had sustained an injury but said he wasn't supposed to talk about it any further.

While he was in pads during the portions of practice Tuesday-Wednesday open to media, he didn't appear to be very active.

Speaking to reporters over Zoom on Thursday morning, interim coach Donte Williams made it sound like Taylor-Stuart would be available but not likely to start.

"The plan is for him to be ready on Saturday. He's a guy who has been getting treatment two or three times a day, and he'll continue to get two or three treatments a day. Right now what he's dealing with is a pain tolerance thing. So it's not something that can get worse or better, it's just a pain tolerance thing and if he's able to do his job," Williams said. "At the same time I have a policy where if you don't practice then you're not gonna start the game. But he's a guy I expect to be available for the game and expect to play."

RELATED: Full transcript of Donte Williams' full comments Thursday morning

If Taylor-Stuart is limited or unavailable it would open up snaps for junior Jayden Williams and redshirt freshman Joshua Jackson Jr.

Taylor-Stuart was the only main player known to be at risk for missing the game and the only injury update Williams spoke to on Thursday.

"Just a lower leg injury," Williams added. "Something that he tweaked in the game and it's obvious to me in the leg that he had [hurt] prior so I mean just a lower leg injury that I expect to be fine. He's still out there, full pads, dressed up for practice. So I expect that he'll be ready to go."

It created some buzz this week with big freshman offensive guard Maximus Gibbs was lined with the scout team defense, at nose tackle.

Some have wondered if that signaled an actual position change for the freshman, while it seems more likely that Gibbs is filling a need right now as USC barely has enough nose tackles to field a two-deep depth chart let along a scout team.

"I just felt that we needed to get a little bigger in the trenches. I look at somebody who since they've been here they've lost 50 pounds and they're continuing to lose," Williams said of Gibbs, who is listed on the roster at 6-foot-7, 390 pounds. "Another guy who didn't get a chance to be here extremely early, but he's working into playing shape. And the things he's able to do is, I don't know anybody that can move him. So if you have somebody on your team that nobody can move you've got to give him a shot. When I approached him about it he said he was open for it and he'd do anything to help the team, so credit to him. Shoot, he looks great doing it in practice so I hope he does it well in the game, which I know he will."

Wait, so Williams intends to play Gibbs in the game at nose tackle after a few days of practice?

That would be a great surprise, even if USC has relied mainly on previously inexperienced redshirt sophomore Stanley Ta'ufo'ou, who played 57 of 76 snaps there last Saturday.

So Williams was asked a follow-up as to whether this is indeed a permanent position switch or just for the rest of the season. His answer was much different this time.

"It’s a week change. It’s a get ready for this game change," he said. "We’re going to make sure that every game we play, we’re going to do everything possible to win that game, win that moment. So I’m not worried about the rest of the season. I’m not worried about permanent. I’m making sure we're doing everything we can for Colorado."

It's not unusual to have guys playing out of position to fill scout team needs. Fellow offensive lineman Gino Quinones lined up with the defensive line scout team a couple weeks ago and then traveled to Washington State as the Trojans' 11th available offensive lineman.

Let's wait and see where this goes from here before overreacting.

The major emphasis in practice this week has been on fixing assignment busts, setting the edge and filling running lanes to avoid the breakdowns that allowed Oregon State to rush for 322 yards last week.

Williams was asked Thursday what gave him confidence the Trojans would be improved in that regard?

"Just for one how we align. A lot of it comes with alignment. It's not like guys were getting blown 10 yards off the ball. It was some alignment issues, some gap fit issues, and they were doing a good job of building gaps. So we made sure we addressed those things and making sure we simplify the game plan like I say, so multiple guys can play, multiple guys can play fast and it's no hesitation," he said. "As a player, when you have any type of hesitation and you start playing slow, that's when issues start occurring. So just simplifying things so guys can play fast and they know exactly what their job is detailed out to be."

Part of addressing that is adding in some live tackling periods during Wednesday's practice -- which is a stark change from former coach Clay Helton's approach of only going full pads on Tuesday.

"Wednesday right now we're in full pads. And it's not like the whole practice is live tackling, it's certain segments when we get to service team when we get the chance to go, guys get a chance to hit guys. Right now that's what we need," Williams said. "We're playing another pro-style team and right now the pro-style teams pretty much have confused us a little bit as far as missed tackles and assignments so just getting guys to fit into a gap and be in a tackling situation. It wasn't like it was a billion plays of that. It was quite a few though; at the same time it gets guys repetitions and how to fill gaps and tackle up."