Opening comments:
"I'm really excited for this opportunity. With Coach Riley at SC at this school at this time, I think it's a wonderful time to be here, it's the right time to be here. As you can already tell with some momentum in recruiting and some of the things that are going on with our program currently, I just feel the future is very bright and 'SC is going to be a place where a lot of great players are going to want to come, throw their hat in the ring and go to work. So I'm excited to be here basically doing the same thing those players are doing, and that's just trying to get on a great team under a great coach and go win games."
How did the process go that led to you joining USC?
"Well, at some point I had kind of figured that Coach Bedenbaugh would come to 'SC with Coach Riley -- they'd been together for a long time, had a lot of success at Oklahoma. When I saw that wasn't happening, I was certainly interested in the job. We had a mutual contact with coach Alex [Grinch], Coach Grinch and I worked for two to three years at Missouri, and [inaudible] so there were several conversations on the phone between Coach Riley and I and obviously there's always business sides to these negotiations, but those things all worked out. But more importantly than the math it was talking about the opportunity of USC, the timing of this job at this time right now, and all those things to me were super attractive. It was very attractive to me too because I'd heard what kind of man that Coach Riley is, the kind of character that he has, the way he runs his program and the culture he builds and I wanted to come be a part of that. Obviously, it's kind of fun to be in the room with him also and get into his mind when it comes to offense. All those things were very attractive to me, and combine that with 76 degree weather, I was like, 'I'm in.'"
How do you recruit offensive linemen to the Pac-12?
"I think the main thing with that is the 'SC offensive line tradition. When you look at 'SC offensive line tradition, it is arguably the best in the country. If you're going to take maybe the top 10 offensive linemen all-time in the NFL, four of those guys could arguably be 'SC Trojans between Munoz, Boselli, Matthews and Tyron Smith. So that type of tradition, that type of history, and in the last three years 'SC offensive line's had two first-round draft picks. So all of those things to me are going to help us attract some of the top talent in the country. So that type of tradition is No. 1. No. 2, I've got to take my success and track record and explain that to the guys and show it to them so they understand that we can help them get where they want to go. We can build a great offensive line here. I would tell you this, it's been interesting so far, having offered kids at two different schools, the same kids over this last recruiting cycle and even for next year, the reaction to 'SC is very positive. It's very positive, so that's got me excited about what the future can be here in the offensive line."
What do you think about the players you're inheriting and did you recruit any of them at your last school?
"I recruited a couple of them. We were just kind of, we had enough players in that part of the world to make it work. We came out and recruited a couple guys that were on this list, obviously they chose 'SC at the end of the day and stayed out in this part of the world. But I've had the opportunity to get out so far a couple times with just walkthroughs and watched these guys do a couple workouts and different things. I like what I see so far. I think these guys are very dedicated, they're excited, they're hungry, they want to win, it's important to them. And I think the older guys in our program understand what's at stake and how much work it takes to win. Winning is hard, it's not easy, and they understand the common denominator of winning all of the time is work. They're doing that right now. From an attitude standpoint, I'm very pleased with where our line is at and the way they've attacked this thing just being here the first month. So we've just got to continue that and keep it up and good things will happen."
How do you expect to collaborate with Lincoln as offensive coordinator?
"Well, No. 1, Coach Riley is the play-caller and the play-caller's vision is always going to be the vision for the offense. So my job is to support him, it's to bring some new ideas, maybe some new thoughts, present those and maybe some supplemental things that I think can make the offense better. But that's a secondary role. My primary role is just to support Coach Riley, make sure that the things we're doing, be there to double check, make sure the things we're doing are going to give us the best chance for success. And then obviously it's always a collaborative effort -- Coach Riley said that yesterday and it is. I've had a great time so far being in the room with him talking football over the last month and it is a collaborative effort and there's a lot of great ideas in it. But right now, what we're really doing is I'm learning his mind, I'm learning his way of thinking about offensive football. And then after we get through these first couple of months then we can kind of start maybe talking about some different things, but right now my primary job is to learn his offense, learn his way of thinking and support that the best way possible."
"I'm really excited for this opportunity. With Coach Riley at SC at this school at this time, I think it's a wonderful time to be here, it's the right time to be here. As you can already tell with some momentum in recruiting and some of the things that are going on with our program currently, I just feel the future is very bright and 'SC is going to be a place where a lot of great players are going to want to come, throw their hat in the ring and go to work. So I'm excited to be here basically doing the same thing those players are doing, and that's just trying to get on a great team under a great coach and go win games."
How did the process go that led to you joining USC?
"Well, at some point I had kind of figured that Coach Bedenbaugh would come to 'SC with Coach Riley -- they'd been together for a long time, had a lot of success at Oklahoma. When I saw that wasn't happening, I was certainly interested in the job. We had a mutual contact with coach Alex [Grinch], Coach Grinch and I worked for two to three years at Missouri, and [inaudible] so there were several conversations on the phone between Coach Riley and I and obviously there's always business sides to these negotiations, but those things all worked out. But more importantly than the math it was talking about the opportunity of USC, the timing of this job at this time right now, and all those things to me were super attractive. It was very attractive to me too because I'd heard what kind of man that Coach Riley is, the kind of character that he has, the way he runs his program and the culture he builds and I wanted to come be a part of that. Obviously, it's kind of fun to be in the room with him also and get into his mind when it comes to offense. All those things were very attractive to me, and combine that with 76 degree weather, I was like, 'I'm in.'"
How do you recruit offensive linemen to the Pac-12?
"I think the main thing with that is the 'SC offensive line tradition. When you look at 'SC offensive line tradition, it is arguably the best in the country. If you're going to take maybe the top 10 offensive linemen all-time in the NFL, four of those guys could arguably be 'SC Trojans between Munoz, Boselli, Matthews and Tyron Smith. So that type of tradition, that type of history, and in the last three years 'SC offensive line's had two first-round draft picks. So all of those things to me are going to help us attract some of the top talent in the country. So that type of tradition is No. 1. No. 2, I've got to take my success and track record and explain that to the guys and show it to them so they understand that we can help them get where they want to go. We can build a great offensive line here. I would tell you this, it's been interesting so far, having offered kids at two different schools, the same kids over this last recruiting cycle and even for next year, the reaction to 'SC is very positive. It's very positive, so that's got me excited about what the future can be here in the offensive line."
What do you think about the players you're inheriting and did you recruit any of them at your last school?
"I recruited a couple of them. We were just kind of, we had enough players in that part of the world to make it work. We came out and recruited a couple guys that were on this list, obviously they chose 'SC at the end of the day and stayed out in this part of the world. But I've had the opportunity to get out so far a couple times with just walkthroughs and watched these guys do a couple workouts and different things. I like what I see so far. I think these guys are very dedicated, they're excited, they're hungry, they want to win, it's important to them. And I think the older guys in our program understand what's at stake and how much work it takes to win. Winning is hard, it's not easy, and they understand the common denominator of winning all of the time is work. They're doing that right now. From an attitude standpoint, I'm very pleased with where our line is at and the way they've attacked this thing just being here the first month. So we've just got to continue that and keep it up and good things will happen."
How do you expect to collaborate with Lincoln as offensive coordinator?
"Well, No. 1, Coach Riley is the play-caller and the play-caller's vision is always going to be the vision for the offense. So my job is to support him, it's to bring some new ideas, maybe some new thoughts, present those and maybe some supplemental things that I think can make the offense better. But that's a secondary role. My primary role is just to support Coach Riley, make sure that the things we're doing, be there to double check, make sure the things we're doing are going to give us the best chance for success. And then obviously it's always a collaborative effort -- Coach Riley said that yesterday and it is. I've had a great time so far being in the room with him talking football over the last month and it is a collaborative effort and there's a lot of great ideas in it. But right now, what we're really doing is I'm learning his mind, I'm learning his way of thinking about offensive football. And then after we get through these first couple of months then we can kind of start maybe talking about some different things, but right now my primary job is to learn his offense, learn his way of thinking and support that the best way possible."
