New USC offensive line coach Clay McGuire didn't hold back Friday in his first meeting with media while talking about his expectations.

He mentioned getting the program back to winning national championships, building the "best offensive line in the country" and hoping to get to a point where all five OL starters become NFL draft picks.

The sentiments are nice, but now begins the work of trying the move the Trojans closer to those goals while taking over the most maligned position group on the team.

"To get the opportunity to coach at a place like this, it’s a dream come true. To get to be a part of the tradition and the legacy and to help create a new standard and the new tradition that we want to uphold here, it’s an honor and a dream come true," McGuire said. "Definitely excited to come in and get to work, do my part and help lead this thing back to winning national championships and producing players at a really high level and making everybody proud of the product we put on the football field."

RELATED: Full transcript of Clay McGuire's comments Friday

McGuire replaces Tim Drevno, who was let go after two and a half seasons in the role (having shifted over from coaching RBs to the OL midway through the 2018 season). While Drevno has an accomplished resume coaching the position under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford, Michigan and with the San Francisco 49ers, those offenses he worked within were distinctly different than what USC runs under offensive coordinator Graham Harrell.

It was no surprise that in replacing Drevno, the Trojans hired a coach with extensive experiences in Air Raid-like offenses. McGuire was an H-back on Mike Leach's Texas Tech teams and got his coaching start with the Red Raiders in 2006 as a video intern before moving up the ranks to graduate assistant (2007), special teams coordinator (2008) and ultimately running backs coach (2009). He coached the offensive line when he reunited with Leach at Washington State from 2012-2017.

In between those stints, he also worked under another of college football's most successful offensive minds as the running backs and special teams coach at East Carolina from 2010-11 with then-offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, now the celebrated head coach at Oklahoma. McGuire returned to Texas Tech in 2018 as co-offensive coordinator and RBs coach, and after Kingsbury was fired McGuire spent the last two seasons coaching the offensive line at Texas State.

On Friday he talked about the value of coming from similar backgrounds and offenses as Harrell, who of course played quarterback and Texas Tech and then was on staff with Leach and McGuire for two years at Washington State.

"I think it’s just a comfort level and a familiarity. It’s one of those things that I’ve spent a lot of time [with Harrell]. We could go back and it's somewhere between 6, 7 to 8 years that we spent together. So when it comes to protection schemes and things like that, we come from the same background, same philosophy of how to protect the quarterback and how to run the offense," McGuire said. "I think it’ll be good for him. I think we'll be able to make adjustments easier, bounce ideas off easier and just move forward a little bit easier because we come from the same place, same background, and there’s a lot of familiarity and trust with each other."

Harrell talked to TrojanSports.com last week in-depth about hiring McGuire and reiterated those same sentiments.

"One, he knows a lot of what we do. He works his tail off in everything he does. He does a good job in recruiting and, like I said, I know he knows what we do offensively and philosophically really fits what we do." Harrell said.

Both Harrell and McGuire were asked what will look different up front, specifically if USC will move to the wider splits between offensive linemen that Leach's teams have been known for, including the Washington State OLs that McGuire coached, and made clear that is not the plan at this moment.

"I know Graham has stressed this a lot. We’re not a true blue Mike Leach Air Raid. There’s principles from the offense and a foundation that’s built from that," McGuire said. "But Graham has a lot of experience doing this on his own. Everybody that leaves the tree kind of puts their spin on the offense. Obviously, he has a tremendous amount of wealth of knowledge from his time playing in the NFL. Then, just from myself, moving on and getting to coach under guys like Kliff Kingsbury and Jake Spavital since I left, to implement some of the things they’re doing in the offense. So we won’t be the humongous, wide, throw-it-every-play splits that we were at Washington State. But from a schematic standpoint, we’ll be pretty similar as far as how we protect the quarterback. Obviously, the run game will look significantly different, I think."

That is indeed the primary order of business for McGuire as he settles in -- to help USC jumpstart its sluggish rushing attack that ranked a lowly 120th nationally in 2020 at just 97.33 yards per game.

For a program that over the years and decades has been so well known for its great running backs, the recent struggles on the ground have been especially hard for fans to accept -- even in games where the passing attack is able to offset it. Harrell has consistently maintained that, again, he is not like Leach in this regard and he does in fact want a better run-pass balance.

But the holes were rarely open up front for the Trojans last season, and there were games where they mostly abandoned the ground game altogether -- like having just 16 RB carries in the win over Washington State. So how will McGuire, with experience coaching both running backs and the offensive line, seek to remedy that?

It was the most significant question of the day for the new coach.

"We’ll meet with Coach Harrell. We’ll have a run game that fits and is complementary to what we’re doing in the pass game. We were talking about it at length yesterday. Every time we’ve had a really good offense or a really strong football team, the run game has been really good," McGuire said. "Not necessarily numbers -- it’s more about how efficient we can run the football. It’s one of those things that Graham and I both agree that to win a championship, to really truly win a championship, you’re going to have to be in situations where you have to get a four-minute offense and grind out a game. There's going to be times where you have to win games ugly. You're not going to be able to win 55-45 every game. So you have to be able to run the football to do that. So we’ll marry that thing up.

"But we’re both in agreeance that when this offense is going, it’s because the running back can’t be stopped. It’s really, really hard to stop this offense if you can’t contain the running back position -- whether that's running the football or getting the ball to them in space in the pass game. But again, we understand how key that position is. If we can be great at that position, which starts with the run game, it’s going to be really hard to stop the other factors in this offense."

McGuire seemed to have a good understanding of what he's walking into, as he didn't even have to be asked about USC's especially frustrating struggles in short-yardage situations last season.

"[The plans is] to be able to get in multiple packages and create matchups and situations for success when you get in those short-yardage, goal line situations, instead of just trying to beat your head against a wall," he said, ending with what would be an apt description of the short-yardage situation last fall.

Another gripe from critics last year was USC's refusal to go under-center in those short-yardage situations. The reason given was that it was simply not something the Trojans worked on in practice. McGuire left open the possibility, but it doesn't sound like anything has been decided in that regard.

"I think there's a time and place for some under-center stuff. Do I think it's always the answer to run the ball better? No, I don't. But I do think that in certain situations, depending on what you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish, I do think there's some things that definitely helps in the run game," he said.

As for specifics on what needs to change overall, he said those answers will become more clear once the Trojans get into spring practice and he can evaluate the situation first-hand.

"We're gonna have to look at our personnel. Everybody thinks it's easy to just throw a tight end in there and start pounding the football. But you've got to have a guy that can do that, you know what I mean? So we've got to get in spring ball and evaluate," McGuire said. "One, we've got to improve ourselves in the run game from the five offensive linemen standpoint. We've got to put those guys in good positions and schematically to make sure we're running downhill not uphill. But two, got to evaluate what kind of tight end we have, what kind of body we have there. And also is it a situation where we have to get some two-back personnel in there? ... So as we go in this we'll find out over the next 8-12 weeks of what we are."

To that end, McGuire wasn't ready to speak specifically about the offensive linemen he's inheriting. USC returns four starters in left guard Andrew Vorhees, center Brett Neilon, right guard Liam Jimmons and right tackle Jalen McKenzie, but the Trojans have a gaping hole at left tackle with projected first-round NFL draft pick Alijah Vera-Tucker moving on, and those other four guys may not be the best fits either. McKenzie, in particular, struggled last season in his transition from guard to tackle.

USC had true freshmen Courtland Ford and Jonah Monheim man the guard spots in one game due to COVID-19 setbacks, and both can also potentially play tackle. Fellow second-year player Casey Collier is an intriguing tackle prospect, but with media not being able to watch practice last season it's hard to say where he is at in his development. And then 4-star signee Mason Murphy leads the incoming freshman class. USC will also likely evaluate the post-spring transfer portal market to see if there are any offensive linemen worth pursuing who could provide immediate help.

"I'm happy where the room is now. It's not like we're walking into a situation where we're going, 'Oh no, I don't know what we're gonna do.' We should have the talent and the size and the ability to be able to make some plays," McGuire said.

As for his initial message to the linemen, McGuire said it's been tough due to COVID restrictions on how the players can meet, but ultimately it comes down to re-establishing the culture and expectations up front.

"We've got to establish a toughness about us. We've got to go out there and be accountable to all of our principles that's gonna go into our kind of culture type stuff. And there's a tradition here," he said. "Like I said, there's guys that played here before and when they turn on a game to watch their alma mater they expect that group to play a certain way. And that's what we've gotta get and strive to get that. When Pat Harlow turns on the tape and those kind of guys turn on the tape, I want them to be proud of how that O-line's playing and turn on and go, 'That's what we need right there. That's the way it used to be.'"

Meanwhile, Seth Doege, recently promoted from offensive analyst to tight ends coach, also spoke with reporters Friday and offered his own perspective on McGuire, while explaining how their histories have intertwined.

"Clay graduated from Crane High School, which is south of Midland/Odessa area in West Texas. And during his time there he was kind of the big name around that area, played quarterback, they were winning a lot of games. My dad was a high school coach in the area as well, so we kind of knew about him, and at the end of my seventh grade year my dad took the Crane job. So we moved out there and Clay was still a legend out there, so he kind of took a liking to me when he would come back home and visit people. We would go training together, we'd throw the football around, and once I got to a point where I was able to be recruited by Texas Tech he was already finished with his eligibility and ended up on staff there," Doege said.

"Obviously, he was always pulling for me, so it was just a unique opportunity for us to just kind of continue our [connection] throughout our football career, and then obviously this job opens and he ends up being a name that's brought up and obviously does a great job through the interviewing process and ends up being a great fit for us. It's kind of ironic how it just stays that way, we just kind of keep following each other. I know Clay probably better than anybody on the staff, so I kind of know what we're getting as a football coach and we're getting an elite coach and even better person. I'm really excited about the jump the offensive line is going to make and what he's going to do for this program."