On whether Alex Orji will start on Saturday

Yeah, Alex will start on Saturday. Excited for him. He's been chomping at the big so we'll move on from there.

On what he's seen from Orji

I thought he was in a really good place and Davis outperformed him in camp at the end. I would love to see him just take the reigns and do what he's been doing, you know, through his first couple weeks. And I think he will, he's had a great couple weeks of practice, so has Davis. But obviously he's got to perform in the game and I'm excited to see what Alex is going to do. And he's been in here setting his tail off the past couple days, like he always is. But, you know, you can see it right in front of you tomorrow.

On whether he sees comparisons between Kalel Mullings and Hassan Haskins

Oh yeah, I mean that's the guy we compared him to last year. I always said like, this dude's Hassan, this dude's Hassan, he runs so hard, he runs physical. But when you got Blake, you're not going to take Blake out. But, you know, the carries he got, he took advantage of. I mean, right now, I mean, 15 carries for, I believe, 153 yards, and 10 yards a carry. I mean, it's unbelievable, running hard, running physical, making guys miss, running over guys, running speed. So, blessed and happy that he's doing a heck of a job and doing what we thought he could.

On what he says to Davis Warren to make sure he stays mentally prepared

Yeah, I mean, it's a tough situation when, you know, the big thing we talk about is taking care of the football and putting the ball in harms away. So, he was very, you know, he's a great team player. So, to watch him on the field, you know, after and celebrate Alex's touchdown and go up there and give him a hug. Not much that I needed to tell him to hype him up or support him. You know, we'll continue to support him. He's one of the players on our team. You know, regardless of things that happen, ups and downs and flows of the game, diversity, we're always going to support our players. But, at the end of the day, we've got to go with the guys who help us win at that time. So, for us, Davis, he's been awesome. He's been great. Obviously, down, not happy about his performance by any means, but definitely still uplifted him in any way.

On how the offense shifts with Orji

Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to give you all the keys to the castle. But, we have a plan in place for Alex and ready to put it on display.

On whether the plan will look similar to what it has been

Yeah, I guess you'll have to see.

On the difficulty of making a quarterback switch

I mean, it's part of the game. You've got to make switches at other positions. You've got to make switches when guys get hurt. You've got to always be ready for it. So, there's always a next man up mentality. We've had to do that in this program, and we're going to continue to do it. So, the whole team will gather around whoever's a quarterback and go win as a team. That's the goal.

On whether he got enough out of Orji to feel confident heading into Saturday

Yeah, we're going to feel confident. We're going to put all we can into whoever's a quarterback, regardless of who it is. So, that's going to be our guy, and that's where we're going to ride with.

On when he's seen Orji at his best

Yeah, I mean, he's got great arm strength. The accuracy has improved tremendously. He's done the things that we think can help us win. So, it's going to take great prep mentally and physically and spiritually this week to get him where we need to be, and I think he'll do that.

On whether it was fall or spring when he's been sharp

Yeah, both. Fall, spring, summer, all those things. But, obviously, we've got to go execute.

On whether he feels like he has enough time to install everything with Orji

No, we've got it all installed. The offense is ready to go for him, and we've got everything adjusted for him and his skillset.

On whether he expects any change on the offensive line

We'll still compete at center. See who, you know, watch the film. Dom actually graded a little bit better than Crip, but Crip made some tremendous plays within this communication thing. So, for us, we've got to definitely push that envelope to see how we can, you know, make that the best it can be. Felt like they played a lot more physical. Ran off the box. When you run for 301 yards, it's a really good day on the ground. So, felt that we made some progress there, so we'll continue to push those guys and push everybody in every position to make sure they're playing at their best.

On evaluating Orji's arm

Yeah, I mean, he can throw. I mean, he didn't connect on the deep ball, which you saw that he has the strength to let it go down there. So, that takes timing. That throw was all about his footwork. People don't know, like, if you don't take the right footwork and you're hitched and the ball gets overthrown. So, for him, he knew exactly what he needed to fix, and he was out there yesterday throwing for an hour. So, I tried to tell him, like, dude, you've got to rest. You still have to get to the game. So, he'll be ready to go.

On whether Fred Moore slowed on the route

A little bit, yeah. A good part of it was, you know, he's trying to find the ball and just got to keep accelerating through it. So, that was a two-plus gain, for sure.

On how Orji handled not winning the starting job

I mean, both those guys, we've said it before, both those guys are great team guys, and he was the first one to pat Davis on the back and give him a hug and tell him congratulations and be there. His attitude never changed. His attitude never wavered. But, obviously, he's disappointed. He's a competitor. As a kid, he wants to be a certain guy. If I was a quarterback and convened for the job, I'd want to do it, too. But the way he led, the way he acted, the way he presented himself was no different than it is now.

On why he thinks more offensive linemen don't become head coaches

Oh, interesting. I don't know. They should be. I mean, I think just the, I don't know if it's the perspective of, you know, you're just in the offensive line room, because I know usually you've got to be a coordinator. You've got to be a defense coordinator. You've got to be an offensive coordinator. So those things are just things that come into play, and I don't really have the answer to that. I'm just going to try to do the best job I can.

On Colston Loveland and the play of Marlin Klein and Hogan Hansen

Yeah, no updates right now on Colston. You know, we'll just keep up the progress with the doctors and see where it goes from there. But I thought those guys played well. Marlin had his best game, three catches for 40-something yards, and Hogan obviously had his first touchdown. Hogan's the guy that's just been kind of one of those guys who just works his tail off and fearless throughout camp. And you put him in there with the twos, he's good. You put him in there with the ones, he's good. He makes plays and just doesn't say anything, just works his tail off. So, bright future for Hogan, and he'll obviously have a role ahead as we go through it.

On USC's adjustment to the Big Ten

Well, I've seen they're a lot bigger, obviously. Up front, they are. They've put on some size, some mass. They've got different guys in there. A bunch of transfers on the O-line. A lot of guys transferred from their defense. But they're a good football team. I think Lincoln does an outstanding job with the team. He's always been a great offensive lineman. I think Coach Lynn's come in and brought in that defensive background, and they play really good defense, solid team defense. So, for us, it's going to be penalty-free, take care of the football player and start the game.

On whether he expects Colston Loveland to practice this week

Yeah, we'll see what the doctors say. So, just let them handle that.

On how Orji helps with not turning the ball over

Yeah, I mean, when he's been in the game, he's taken care of it. So, that's a big piece for us. So, we're going to continue to do that and be in a good place.

On whether he stands by the decision to start Davis and whether it was the right decision at the time

Yes. All right. And then, that's the only part that we remembered up here, so we'll keep going.

On whether he can go back on his decision to start Orji or he has to stay committed

What do you mean, can I go back on it? I think we're just going to play the best guy that we think is going to help us win. That's it. We're not going to go back and forth. So, we're just going to go for progress to the next game and take the guys we think are going to help us win, and that's what we're going to do.

On whether going back and forth with the quarterbacks not helping with confidence in the team

I don't understand what you're asking.

On going back and forth continued...

Yeah, I don't think we're going to go back and forth. Alex is a start quarterback now, so there we go.

On whether he has a relationship with Lincoln Riley

Yeah, I never was with him at any time at Oklahoma, but you can just see the organization and how he runs the program and players play for him, players love him, and you can see that in him, and I've met him briefly. He's a great guy, and obviously not a standard coach and developer, a quarterback, so a lot of respect for him.

On Ike Iwunnah

I mean, first, yeah, Ike's my guy. They're all like all these kids are my kids, but this kid has been on the scout team for the past three years, and to watch a guy progress and just get better and get better and get better, he changed his body throughout the spring and the summer, and really in training camp you start to see him make plays, and I'm just like double-taking him. Ike's making his plays, and continually doing it. He did it in the Texas game, made some big plays, stopping the run, and he did it in this game, so it was awesome, proud moment, big hugs. I tried to lift him up. He's too heavy for that. But he's definitely progressing the right way and gave us some depth back there with the D-line for sure.

On Miller Moss

Yeah, really good football player, man. Accurate, takes care of the football, plays well within the system, not a runner by any means, but definitely has good arm strength and has a lot of weapons around him and distributes it well, plays well within the system, so he's a really good player.

On who jumps out at him while watching USC film

I mean, I'll just go one. Obviously, the quarterback's really good. I think the line is good. Number one, Branch, he's explosive, twitchy, big playmaker. But on defense, I'd say number six, their defensive end, Lucas. He's a game-wrecker that we've got to definitely have our eyes on.

On whether Jack Tuttle is an option at quarterback

Yeah, I mean, I think we'll see some more this week about how the healing process is going. So as we get through there, we'll just go with the doctor's opinions on that one.

On USC improving their phsycality

Yeah, I mean, I've watched last year, watched this year, watched all the teams that we're going to play that are coming from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten, and I feel like all those guys are suited to playing this conference. So all really good football teams, and they're no different.

On Kirk Campbell's previous OC experience helping him make a decision on the quarterback

I mean, I think just for us, it's who we think is going to be the best to help us win the game. That's it. I think we've all had to deal with a quarterback switch at some point, and for us, it's who's going to help us win, and that's why we feel strongly that it's going to be Alex right now.

On whether the RBs will get more involved in the passing game

I think we'll just, you know, we have a plan that we feel like is going to be good for Alex and the quarterback, and we'll let him feel comfortable and then start to work on whoever we need to from there.

On whether he can apply anything he learned from Texas this week

I think for us on defense, it's just doing what we do best and making sure we put ourselves in a position to be successful. We can't, you know, you've got to learn from Texas and learn from those things, but this is a new offense. It's new weapons, new things, new quarterbacks, so for us, we just have to do what we can to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes we made then.

On Jadyn Davis redshirting

Yeah, we've never had any conversations about that. We just keep it open, and we'll go from there.

On Andrew Gentry grading out as the jumbo OL and CJ Charleston

Andrew, not bad. Still got to get better, still some stuff to clean up, but played good in that extra lineman role, gave us some power, some thump there, which we needed. I thought C.J. Charleston played outstanding, especially in the run game. He was knocking people's heads off, so it was good to see that, and he'll make some plays in the passing game as we go through.

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