USC Football Notes: RB MarShawn Lloyd expected to be 'available' vs. Oregon

It was a surprise before the game last Saturday when USC star running back MarShawn Lloyd was spotted out on the field for early warmups, later coming out without pads under his jersey, confirming he would miss hte game.

Lloyd was coming off his best performance of the season the previous game at Cal -- 115 rushing yards and 2 TDs plus 72 receiving yards -- and he had talked to reporters after practice last Tuesday, which injured players don't do.

But coach Lincoln Riley revealed after the game that they found out mid-week Lloyd might be inactive stemming from an unspecified injury from that Cal game.

On Thursday, Riley provided an update, saying that he expects Lloyd to be "available" this Saturday at No. 6-ranked Oregon.

RELATED: Full transcript of Lincoln Riley's comments Thursday

"Yeah, MarShawn’s done well this week. We’ve been pleased with him. If we don’t have any issues going forward, expect him to make the trip and hopefully be available," Riley said.

As a follow-up, he was asked if "hopefully be available" means there are still hurdles for Lloyd to clear before being ready to play ...

"It’s been positive this week but anytime you’re coming back from an injury, there’s a progression to it. It’s not like you’re throwing them out there on a Tuesday practice and they’re just straight out there in a live scrimmage, which obviously, if you get in a game, it’s a full live situation," Riley said. "So there’s progressions from any injury. He’s trending well. I think barring anything unforeseen, I think he’ll be available for us on Saturday."

Lloyd leads the Trojans with 776 rushing yards and 8 TDs, plus 157 receiving yards, and his 7.7 yards-per-carry average is the best mark in the country among running backs averaging at least 10 carries a game.

In his stead last week, veteran Austin Jones rushed for 127 yards on 11 carries. It was only the second time all season Jones had double-digit carries. He's rushed for 385 yards and 5 TDs, plus 68 yards and a TD receiving.

"Just being consistent, trusting the offensive line, trusting the quarterback and just being consistent all the way through," Jones said of his big game.

Riley was also asked about sophomore Raleek Brown's role moving forward.

Brown, the former five-star prospect who scored 6 combined rushing/receiving touchdowns last season, hadn't played since having a limited role in the season opener and deciding to protect his redshirt season at that point.

Players can play in four regular-season games and still redshirt. Saturday was Brown's second, meaning he can play in the final two and still not lose a year of eligibility.

"I mean, obviously the four-game [leeway] gives you some options, whether it’s Raleek or a couple of other guys on our roster so we’ll continue to just know that we may have a few more guys available now that had not exhausted those four games at the beginning, kind of knowing that any postseason game doesn’t factor into that so that obviously makes it a little bit easier to make those decisions for us," Riley said. "So yeah, Raleek, anybody else, we’ll continue to evaluate them on a week-to-week basis and what they can contribute and if guys have got games available and what they can contribute, then we’ll certainly be ready to use them."

Brown had 3 carries for 16 yards, including a touchdown, and caught 2 passes for 4 yards.

"Raleek is one of the best dudes in the room. It's great to have him back, great to see him get in the end zone. He's one of my guys," Jones said. "He's just a worker. At the end of the day, he works super hard and he's one of the most athletically-gifted people I've ever been around."

Linebacker Mason Cobb spurred a lot of reaction on social media, including from former players, when he was asked Tuesday about what he learned from the film of the loss to Washington and he responded, "Didn't watch the film. Nope. Moved on from that game."

Riley was asked how he as a coach balances the value of having players see what went wrong from the game vs. just moving on in a situation as extreme as the one last weekend, which prompted the firing of defensive coordinator Alex Grinch.

"Rarely, rarely like this. We’re a big evaluate what it was, evaluate what went wrong, see the good, see the bad, be very transparent about it with our players, be very transparent about it with ourselves. We certainly spent time on the film and going through it as coaches. We didn’t completely ignore it with the players, but at the same time, with all that’s transpired, and all that you’re trying to do here in a week, you gotta weigh that," Riley said. "You only have so much time with them. And I think given the change at coordinator, going back and spending all types of time harping on that did not make the most sense to that, in terms of getting this team – again, the only goal right now is getting this team, getting our defense ready to play this week as well as we possibly can.

"That’s the only goal, the only focus. We went forward with that mindset. And obviously, giving Coach Nua, Coach Odom the chance to put their personality into this plan in terms of not even schematically, but how we want to attack, how we want to play. It’s hard to do that when we spend so much time going back, rehashing what we did with a different coordinator. It is what it is. Obviously that doesn’t happen very much. I could probably count on my hand, one hand, the number of times we kind of just flushed a game and moved onto the next one. But this was a situation where we didn’t completely flush it but we didn’t spend as much time on it as we would a typical game."