Lincoln Riley and USC Football Gear Up for an “Elite” Summer in Preparation for 2023 Season

By: Keely Eure, Director of Creative Content and Team Reporter

Football | April 20, 2023

Head coach Lincoln Riley held one final spring press conference Thursday (April 20), to wrap up USC’s 2023 spring camp. The coach spoke to the media several days after the football team’s Spring Game in the Coliseum and shared his evaluation of the day, highlighted standouts from camp, and previewed what’s next for the program.

News & notes from head coach Lincoln Riley‘s final press conference of spring:

• Riley shared his overall thoughts on USC’s Spring Game after having time to evaluate the team’s performance on film:

  
  

  • “There was some good, some bad, some in between, I think on both sides,” Riley said.

• Riley described the Trojans’ first-team offensive line as “pretty solid” and mistake-free on Saturday and highlighted certain standouts on USC’s second team:

  
  

  • “I thought Elijah Paige really played well,” Riley said. “Cooper [Lovelace] did a nice job. Mason Murphy did a nice job. He bounced back and forth a little bit between both [tackle spots], but there were some good things in the run game.”

• The head coach also provided his evaluation of how USC’s defensive fared on Saturday:

  
  

  • “We got in the backfield quite a bit. We had a couple chances to get the guys down in the backfield that we missed,” Riley said. “Obviously, we made a few of them, had some TFLs and were pretty active at times.”

  • “I thought we missed a couple of tackles, especially a couple of the runs that got out,” Riley continued. “Missed a few tackles that we needed to make, but there were also some really good open field…