Notes from USC and Notre Dame head coach press conferences ahead of Trojans - Irish

USC and Notre Dame head coaches Lincoln Riley and Marcus Freeman both spoke to the media on Thursday ahead of the No. 10 Trojans (6-0, 4-0) heading to South Bend to take on the No. 21 Fighting Irish (5-2). Here’s a look at what stood out from each.

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman

On facing the USC running game:

“It’s a challenge. They got a stable of good running backs, a good offensive line, good speed. We got to be able to stop the run, and we got to do it in different ways. I think success on defense always starts with being able to stop the run. We’ve been practicing, and we feel like we have a great plan for it.”

On USC’s defense:

“They’re aggressive. They have a good scheme. I know some of the stats might not say, but they’ve been really good. They’re aggressive, as I said. They got athletes all over the field. Those guys up front, they put a lot of pressure on the quarterback in the pass game. I know our offense knows it has a great challenge ahead of it.”

On getting after USC quarterback Caleb Williams:

“You gotta continue to trust your pass lanes, trust your rush lanes and know that the play is never over. There’s a lot of times when you’re playing quarterbacks if you can get them to step up or force them into a lane, sometimes you feel like he’s going to take off and run or throw it out of bounds, but Caleb Williams finds a way to extend plays. We have to be controlled, but aggressive. Controlled aggression is what we talk about in our rush lanes, but understand the play is never over with Caleb Williams. You have to continuously play through the whistle. The minute you think he’s running one way, you have to be alert because he can turn around and run the other. We can’t play prevent defense. I told those guys we have to be aggressive, but we have to understand the rush lanes that we’re rushing in and understand some of his escape routes. That’s something we’ve been working on.”

On this also being midterm week for Notre Dame players:

“As I told them on Monday, every week at Notre Dame is challenging. That’s what they do. I know they had midterms this week, but it goes down to preparation for your midterms and going and doing a great job. As I told them, we won’t look to make any excuses. We embrace the challenge of the academic rigors of Notre Dame. It’s what makes this place so special.

“Our guys have done a great job. They got to prioritize getting rest. They got to prioritize no wasted time. And I think they’ve done a really good job.”

On Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman as a leader:

“I think the biggest thing with Sam is he’s consistent. He’s experienced. He’s been through wins and losses. He continues to be the same person, the same leader. What happens the week before does not affect the way Sam approaches his preparation and approaches his leadership. I’ve been really pleased with what he’s done in terms of every single week of preparation and leadership.”

On the Notre Dame running back rotation:

“I think you’ve seen an increase in [Jeremiyah Love‘s] carries and production the past few games. He’s continuously getting better. Audric [Estimé] is Audric. We got to continue to get the ball to Audric and protect him and make sure we open up some run lanes for him.

“But we still feel comfortable with Jadarian [Price] and Gi’Bran [Payne] and even Devyn Ford coming into the game in their specific roles. We know as the season goes on, as I said a few weeks ago, you can’t continuously play five guys. That’s what you’ve seen, that Audric and Jeremiyah have taken majority of the load with Jadarian being third.

“I think you’ll see a similar type of mindset as we go into this game. There are certain packages for certain guys, but we’re going to continuously make sure that Audric Estimé and Jeremiyah Love have a chance to do some things with the ball in their hands as well as Jadarian Price.”

USC head coach Lincoln Riley

On USC’s third-down struggles the past three games:

“The biggest issue that we’ve had is we’ve been in way, way too many third and longs and several extra longs. I think that’s been really the biggest problem. I mean, you sit there and play a ton of third and longs, that’s going to be the case. Shoot, the last several games, we’ve hardly run any third and short plays. Good third down teams, one, you don’t get into third downs and two, you get into the third downs where percentage-wise the offense has some type of advantage. And those are your shorts and your more medium, normal-type downs. We’ve been in a ton of third and longs, and obviously, you want to be better than those. But you’d be the best team in the country if you convert 30% of your third and longs. It’s just the name of the game that way. So that’s the biggest thing. We’ve had a couple of opportunities that we missed, especially early in the game the other day on some manageable ones that we got to make. But number one thing is we got to stay out of third and longs more than we have the last couple of weeks.”

On Calen Bullock taking on a more vocal role:

“He’s starting to get our of his comfort zone there…Yeah, we have pushed him. He’s played a couple years for us now. He knows the defense. He knows our culture. He knows the guys. And specifically in that defensive backfield with our secondary guys, having some leaders step up there is very, very important for us. I mean, you need it on offense, you need it on defense, you need special teams, but then within these different kind of pods on the team, you need those guys to step up as well. And so we’ve pushed him. He’s starting to get out of his comfort zone and do it more and we’re just kind of continuing to push him along because I think it’s going to help us and it’s obviously going to help his evolution as a player.”

On defenses using what other teams have had success with against the Trojans:

“I don’t know that I’d point anything that any of the three of those groups did that you just said, ‘Man, they just came out and copied and did exactly what somebody else has done.’ We’ve certainly seen that before. It certainly happened a couple of times last year. Happened a little bit in this game last year. So it’s always on the table. You gotta be ready for it. People are gonna throw new things at you, whether it’s something that they cooked up or something that they saw somebody else do that they felt like that they liked. And so you got to be ready to go execute. And you don’t always know what’s in people’s heads, right? Like, do they feel like they need that to try to stop you? Do they feel like they can play their base package and do it? It’s kind of the game within the game that you deal with every single week. And so our scheme here is based less upon what the defense is doing and more upon our guys being able to execute.”

On USC’s offensive line still being a ‘Work in progress’:

“It’s definitely different (compared to the 2022 offensive line). It’s a different setup. You know, more guys coming in from different places. You know the o-line last year was the group that probably had more continuity than any other group on the football team coming in. And you felt that. We’re probably a little more talented right now than what we were a year ago. But you know, not having some of these guys. Not adding Pregnon until right here. Really didn’t have him much at camp. You know, Gino getting hurt, which was I mean, obviously a starter for us, right there at the beginning. You know, that’s like losing a starting offensive lineman just right there out of the gate. All those things have certainly had an effect. And we do feel like that we’ve got a good group right now to work with. There’s definite signs of us being able to play the ball that we feel like we’re gonna be capable of playing there, which we think is pretty high. And kind of like the rest of the team. This is the second half of the year. This is the time where all those things start to pay dividends and you really start to play a consistent…we’ve played some really good ball. You’re not scoring well over 50 points a game, whatever we’re scoring. You’re doing that without playing some pretty good ball up there. But we can play better and feels like we’re kind of right there on the edge of pushing through and doing that with that group.”

On the biggest challenge on and off the field this Saturday

“On field, that’s simple, probably obvious. They’re a good team. You’re playing a good team at their place. I mean, they’re a complete team. They’ve very experienced at a lot of key areas. And they’ve played in some big games already. I mean it’s a good football team, well-coached football team. I think in terms of the kind of the intangible side of it, I think you got to handle all parts of this. You got to handle, we’ve talked a lot about the road. You have to handle the intensity and embrace the intensity and excitement of this game and still settle in and go play great ball. You’ve got to handle the elements and whatever the weather does present. I mean, there’ll be a lot of other fun, unique challenges. But again, that’s rivalry games. That’s what it should be like. Two good football teams. It’ll be a fun environment. And our guys are very, very excited to go play.

On whether he’s been to Notre Dame and if there are plans for an in-stadium walkthrough:

“No, I haven’t been there. Watching Rudy is probably the closest thing, which I’ve seen probably 5,000 times. So, watching that is probably the closest experience that I’ve had. So, looking forward to that for sure. Some of that depends on like location, where you’re staying, what time the game is, all of that. In my past, at times, we have gone through and done a quick little walkthrough at the stadium, especially if you’re playing a night game. This one doesn’t quite fit because of we’re traveling obviously a little bit of a ways. We’re gonna leave tomorrow morning and get there a little bit earlier, help our guys get adjusted. And so we’re going to be busy enough on the schedule, and that combined with where we’re staying, you’re not able to stay just right next door there. So won’t be able to physically do a walkthrough at their place. But yeah, looking forward to getting in there and playing.”

Riley on the inside linebacker rotation and position:

“I think we felt like all of those guys practiced well enough that we were gonna play them. And then we wanted to kind of see how the game unfolded from the linebacker position. And, you know, after the first quarter we really kind of got settled in and had a pretty good stretch of ball, we thought from the ‘backers. We had the one big mistake on the seam ball for the touchdown. Other than that, we were doing some pretty good things in linebacker world. Yeah, we used those guys. You know, Shane [Lee] came in and made some plays. We thought kind of steadied us there a little bit at the end. I kind of liked having him and his experience in there. Kind of a combination of him and Mason [Cobb] and [Eric] Gentry there at the end and all were playing at a high level. Tackett [Curtis] has radically improved. His mistakes have really gone down. He’s playing fast. He has learned a lot. It’s been a lot coming at him, for sure. in I mean for sure, but now super encouraged by his progress. And again, I feel like that group, and certainly with Raesjon [Davis] firmly in the mix. I mean, there’s still five that we feel very comfortable with and it’s been good to keep them fresh because those guys also all play a pretty prominent role in our special teams as well. So there will always be some type of rotation in mind and then as guys get hot as the game unfolds, then we’ll make those decisions real time.”