What Lincoln Riley said during his final press conference of spring camp

Riley addressed a wide range of topics on Thursday

For the final time this spring, USC football coach Lincoln Riley addressed reporters via Zoom on Thursday. His most significant quotes from the session are below. 

On University of Florida offensive lineman transfer Ethan White choosing to not enroll at USC:

"There's an injury situation that looks like it's going to prevent him from playing further. ... We were excited to get him, but it's football and certainly these things come up. There's football and there's also long term health and we understand guys have to make those decisions and the best decisions for themselves."

On his concerns about the USC first team defense giving up a touchdown on three plays to the first team offense in the spring game:

"If the entire spring was like that, would I have concerns? Yes. Sure I would. But the entire spring was a little bit more like the rest of that scrimmage honestly. Like I've said many times, it's been very back and forth."

On adding players on the offensive and defensive lines from the April transfer portal window:

"We're certainly going to look at bringing in a guy or two here [on the offensive line]. There's no question."

"We're still in the market certainly on the defensive front. ... We'll certainly take a look at any impact player there. We like what we have there, but we also know that we have some movable pieces on the entire front as far as what's currently here. ... I feel certain we'll upgrade. I don't know where exactly it will be." 

On the USC backup quarterback job:

"The depth chart and those decisions don't get made until later on, but Miller Moss is pretty clearly the second guy right now. That's no surprise."

On his excitement about the early enrollees this spring:

"Maliki Crawford, we didn't get to see him much, obviously coming off of his injury and procedure. We won't have him until a little later on. The rest of the early enrollees we got to see and see a lot of them. We're pretty excited about everyone of them to be honest. ... It's a group that's got a chance to do some pretty special things around here if they stick together and keep working. I wouldn't trade them for many others, I can tell you that."

On early enrollee Sam Greene:

"Sam surprised us thing spring. ... When he came in, he ended up being a better fit for us at rush end, which was a little unexpected. ... He had a great spring. ... I feel like he had one to two sacks every day. He did some really nice things dropping into coverage. Mentally, he's done a nice job picking the position up. He was impressive. He's one of those freshmen that to me, staked his claim that he's going to be a factor for us on the defensive side of the ball and on special teams. He's going to be a factor in some of these competitions. The track that he is on right now is exciting."

On wide receiver Kyron Hudson:

"Kyron had a really good spring. He and Brenden Rice, Michael Jackson and Dorian Singer basically took all of the reps at outside receiver this spring, which is a lot of reps to divvy up between four people. Kyron got some great work and built on the foundation that he established last year. ... Kyron doesn't miss practice and he doesn't miss games. He's one of the tougher players we have. That reliability and that trust factor is huge for us and he's certainly towards the top of the list on this football team."

On Raleek Brown:

"Given that he missed essentially half of spring with a soft tissue injury, we decided just to focus in on some of the perimeter work and receiver work...We ended up doing that the majority of the spring where I think the plan was to get him in the backfield and do a little bit of all of it and we didn't quite get there. Obviously his experience in the backfield going back to last year is still there and extremely valuable going forward."

On the challenge of recruiting in the transfer portal:

"The biggest thing with the portal is the time crunch. It just happens typically really, really, really fast. This time of year, you can't go out and see recruits unless they're on your campus, there's no face to face contact. The timeline puts a crunch on it."

On USC's NIL setup:

"We have a few collectives out there, but you've got collectives that essentially are going to end up attacking different areas or different sets of opportunities...Could it ever be under one umbrella? Maybe. But that may be down the line. There's a lot to it right now...I think what we have right now, is that we have something for everybody. Anybody that wants to be involved with NIL at USC in any way, there's a collective for you."

On early enrollee offensive lineman Elijah Paige's performance in the spring game:

"We though Elijah really played well."