USC DL Tyrone Taleni has been 'banged up' since first game, Lincoln Riley says

Tyrone Taleni played his return to the USC lineup last week against Oregon State after missing two straight games. Lincoln Riley explained why he didn’t play, and confirmed the key defensive lineman is back to 100%.

Taleni got “banged up” in the Trojans’ season opener against Rice and Riley kept him out as a precaution. However, Taleni was available if USC needed him to come in and contribute, but Riley said the goal was to avoid further injury.

Now that Taleni’s fully healthy, Riley said he’ll be back in the rotation.

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“He was a little banged up after the first game,” Riley said. “I’d say similar to a Courtland Ford as available, but it was going to be better if we could get through those without him getting beat up too much. Now he’s back healthy, also made a couple plays the other night. He just has that depth on the interior. He does. It allows us to move other guys around, allows us to, at times, play Tuli [Tuipulotu] on the edge a little bit more.

“You’ve got more fresh bodies that we can rotate and continually throw those fresh, fast bodies at that offensive line from the interior perspective. He’s certainly firmly in the mix in the rotation and has played well when we’ve played him. It’s good to be able to get those couple of wins, but also — like we did with Courtland and a few others — good to kind of get him back a little bit closer to 100%.”

Lincoln Riley addresses Caleb Williams’ media silence

Since his rough game against Oregon State last week, USC quarterback Caleb Williams hasn’t met the media despite the victory. The Trojans canceled his availability on Wednesday ahead of this week’s matchup against Arizona State, and Lincoln Riley explained why.

Williams went 16-for-36 for 180 yards and a game-winning touchdown pass to Jordan Addison to help USC come back to defeat Oregon State 17-14 and improve to 4-0. He didn’t take questions after the game, nor did he meet with reporters on Wednesday during the scheduled availability. Riley attributed Williams’ postgame absence to “a break” before confirming he’ll be back on schedule going forward.

“We gave him a break after the game. Brought a couple different people in there,” Riley said during his Thursday Zoom call. “We’ve made him as available as any player in the country probably in our time here. He’s done a lot of different media obligations and I think has went, honestly, above and beyond probably the normal call of a college athlete.

“Yesterday, had a couple things going on, so didn’t do it. But that won’t affect his media availability going forward. He’s had a good week. He’s practiced well. Very engaged with his teammates. Business as usual.”