Lincoln Riley reveals tight position battles as fall camp closes

With the regular season beginning in just a few weeks, USC head coach Lincoln Riley broke down how position battles are finishing in camp. Riley highlighted several positions where there’s opportunity for players to earn playing time with the Trojans this year, while explaining that position battles don’t end when the season starts in his eyes.

Lincoln Riley on USC position battles

“I think both specialist battles, both kicker and punter, are entertaining and fun to watch,” began Riley. “Those guys are competing hard. I think there’s battles within some of these skill spots especially. Some of the fronts too. No doubt some of these guys are gonna play and it comes down to how much. Is a guy gonna dominate the amount of reps? Or kind of how that’s gonna shake out. I think we have that at a number of the skill positions right now. I think we have that.

“I think we have several backs we want to play with right now, we have several receivers we want to play with and then we have 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 gonna look like that.”

Riley also provided a good look at how his offensive line is shaping up this fall camp as well, naming players that have earned their spot in the rotation — even if it’s unsure exactly how much they will see the field.

“Left tackle is interesting right now, certainly. I feel like [Andrew] Vorhees and [Brett] Neilon and [Justin] Dedich and [Jonah] Monheim have continued where they left off in the spring. And feel like those guys if we played today would certainly be starters. And right now we feel like Courtland [Ford] and Bobby [Haskins] are good enough that I’m sure they’re both gonna have a role.

“The interior d-line, I think you’re looking at five or six guys that are definitely gonna play and then just how much do you rotate them. It’s still a lot.”

Riley closed his breakdown of the position battles he’s watching with how he’s approaching practices and coaching throughout the season. Every season sees players fight hard to win playing time, regardless of where they started the season on the depth chart.

“The selection of this is an ongoing process, it’s never finite, it never ends. And so it’ll be fun to watch this go through. And one of the things that we push the guys really hard on that we’re gonna 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 gotta keep improving in practice. And to improve it’s gotta be competitive. It’s just human nature, that’s the way it is. 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 on the scout team … all of a sudden becomes a starter.”