USC coach Lincoln Riley met with reporters after the Trojans' Saturday morning practice, which represented the end of fall camp as the team transitions into game week routine two weeks out from the season opener.
Riley talked about the players who have gained the most ground in camp, the position battles that remain unsettled, Korey Foreman's return to action and more.
Watch the full video here or keep scrolling for our complete transcript:
What players have helped themselves the most through camp?
"Good question. Ceyair [Wright] comes to mind. He's one of the first guys off my mind when I think about where he was in spring to now. Mason Murphy comes to mind. I mean, a lot of guys have made a big jump, there's no doubt about that. Xamarion Gordon comes to mind. There's a lot more that have than haven't, I'll put it that way. The guys that have been able to just, one, stay on the field, stay healthy whether it was on the field or being able to go full participation in our offseason program, they've all made strides. There's no doubt about it. Those are three guys that you turn on the film [from] spring and then you turn on the film fall and there's a noticeable, a really big gap, so obviously they did a pretty good job throughout the summer and here in fall camp."
Any position battles that are still tight?
"I think both specialist battles, both kicker and punter are entertaining and fun to watch. Those guys are competing hard. You know, I think there's battles within some of these skill spots especially and some of the fronts too of no doubt some of these guys are going to play and it comes down to how much. Is a guy going to dominate the amount of reps or kind of how that's going to shake out. I think we have that at a number of the skill positions right now. I think we have several backs we want to play with right now, I think we have several receivers we want to play with, multiple corners we want to play with. We've been a little banged up at safety throughout camp, but we'll get some of those guys back here on Monday, so I do think safety ultimately and nickel both are going to look like that.
"Left tackle is interesting right now, certainly. I feel like [Andrew] Vorhees and [Justin] Dedich and [Brett] Neilon and [Jonah] Monheim have continued where they left off in spring, and I feel like those guys if we played today would certainly be starters. Right now, we think both Courtland [Ford] and Bobby [Haskins] are good enough, they're both going to have a role. And I wouldn't rule out that one of them could potentially play another position -- they're both smart enough to do it and have done it for us here in camp.
"The interior D-line, I think you're looking at five or six guys that are definitely going to play and then just how much do you rotate them. So still a lot. The selection of this is an ongoing process. It's never final, it never ends. So it'll be fun to watch this go through. And then one of the things we push the guys really hard on and we're going to have to do a tremendous job of is the best teams continue to improve throughout the year. And the only way you continue to improve is obviously learn lessons and all that in games but you've got to keep improving in practice, and to improve it's got to be competitive. Just human nature, that's the way it is. So we continue the competition throughout practices all year. And we'll see it -- there will be somebody this year that's a starter in Game 1 that isn't in Game 5 and somebody that's in scout team or a 2 or 3 in Game 1 that all of a sudden becomes a starter. We have a lot of great examples of that from the past, and it will be kind of fun to see how those competitions go on not only through the next few weeks and the first game but obviously throughout the year."
