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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 2, 2011

Lane Kiffin

COACH KIFFIN: Well, I think this is an exciting day for the Trojan family. This was a lot of work going into this class, a lot of support from our administration, from Pat Haden, J.K. McKay and Donna Heinel. Lot of people involved in this.
At the UCLA game afterwards, I said this was going to be a very critical off-season for us, and one that we're going to spend every day working on this class so hopefully we didn't have a season like we did before.
I think today we've made a step towards that. With our staff working extremely hard, we've been able to add 30 players to our roster. A roster that, prior to this class, had 50 scholarship players, has now gone to 80, with the possibility of more soon to come.
So it was a very critical time for the is SC football program, and to go out and add a bunch of local players and especially from Southern California, then to go to places like Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, Cleveland and Arizona to add some out-of-state players as well. This class is very exciting for us.
I think it's very deep. I think it addresses a lot of needs from position specific and from depth issues as well. So we're excited about this class. Obviously, we're still working on some kids, and it will be exciting to get them here and help them develop as student-athletes.

Q. What was the thinking in signing 21 and probably going to sign more potentially?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, it was just after the eight kids that ended up being mid-year enrollees, just looking at it, we wanted to make sure we added a number of quality players, but I know we didn't reach. Even at the end when there were some players we could have gone to, we wanted to make sure we didn't just continue to add players but make sure we got the right guys.

Q. But in terms of the NCAA sanctions and appeal still to be determined, why 21? Probably wasn't close to a full class instead of 20 or knowing the penalty is coming (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, what we did is we followed the guidelines of what we could do. We could sign a maximum of 25 today, not counting the mid-years that went into last year's class. So we got close to that.

Q. When did you decide you were going to sign the full class?
COACH KIFFIN: I don't know that exactly. I just know as it went along, we were always working on the best plan for our roster. The last thing we were going to do is not sign enough players when we were allowed to sign 25.

Q. It seemed like there was a reluctance though by you and other people here, the athletic director saying we're going to sign a full class. What is the reasoning behind that?
COACH KIFFIN: I just think in an appeal process they just want to make sure that what they were doing was exactly what we were allowed to do. And I don't think that at any point felt the need to tell everybody around the country exactly what our plan was, including rival schools.

Q. Every signing class brings different challenges. What were the challenges?
COACH KIFFIN: Just dealing with everything around it like last year. Last year's class we had to deal with the potential of two years, and this year's class with the potential of a one-year post-season ban.
So it was actually refreshing today to move on to now be able to recruit kids that we don't have to recruit against a post-season ban, and giving schools extra fire power against us.
It will be refreshing now to go on to next year's class and being be on a level playing field.

Q. Is there any player that is the biggest, most pleasant surprise that you just said, wow, we've got him. That's pretty cool? Did you have anyone like that?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, I think Lamar Dawson. Local kids, California kids. You'd usually like to think that you're going to get them or at least be in the top two. Lamar had a number of great schools to go to.
He was in the middle of Kentucky, obviously, not right down the road, in SEC territory. A very good student, team leader, potential great player, obviously a very big position of linebacker. So to be able to go in there and get Lamar to come probably was the biggest surprise.
We knew the night before as I've said before. If you're watching the show and they're pulling hats and you don't know, they're not pulling yours. Even though it wasn't a surprise that minute, the night before was pretty exciting.

Q. How big a void does that fill?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, going back over the season West had really good defensive linemen working for us this year. We weren't able to rotate the way we'd like to. Especially in college football and in this conference now, we needed to do that.
It was an area need of defensive line. And offensive line, if we could have, we would have signed more. It's just we have I think we might have seven or eight healthy bodies, or eight healthy bodies for spring ball right now on the offensive line. So it was something that was very important to us.

Q. How much did the addition of Aundrey Walker mean to you? Does this kind of solidify for you that you're getting the depth you want?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, Aundrey is probably right behind Lamar as far as a surprise. Here's a player at Cleveland Glenville High School. When you study it, and they're out from the state of Ohio, they usually go to Ohio State. So for us to be able to go get those done was critical for us. Both of them are a position of need. Aundrey's 375 pounds, 6'5", so gives us some size there and we'll see. We'll plug they will in and see what he can do.
Those were probably the most exciting to me to see. I had talked about during the season that I had not felt the sanctions and Bowl bans as much locally as I had going to get the kids from a long way away, because now it gave them the excuse not to come.
To go get a couple kids that everybody in the country was after, to still come with all that going on was very exciting.

Q. When did you find out about Walker coming?
COACH KIFFIN: I've known for a few days. I was with Aundrey last week and had known pretty much he was coming to us.

Q. It seems there is a bit of skepticism about your ability to pull off this type of class with the sanctions going on and all that type of thing. Did you feel that? How do you feel you combated that?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, it's not me. I don't care how good a recruiter you are. If you weren't at a place like SC, and I think SC is the only place with all that going on, and all the ammo that everybody had going against you, for these kids to still choose USC because of the education, and because of playing football here, I just think it speaks volumes for USC.
I just don't think you can do it, because I think the expectation probably was -- I'm sure a lot of people thought -- when you were facing the Bowl bans and everything around it, and the scholarship reductions that may be coming, that something like this wouldn't happen.

Q. Why is Isiah Wiley in the class of 2011 as opposed to 2010?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, Isiah will enroll in the fall. He was not able to have everything completed, so he'll be here in the summer.

Q. You talked about building a wall. Do you think you achieved that this year?
COACH KIFFIN: I don't think we know yet. Notice I didn't say anything after that. No, I know. I've got you.
As of right now, I think we did a pretty good job. I'm always going to not be excited if it's not everybody. But, unfortunately, you can't get everybody every time. As much as you'd like to, there is always going to be something that somebody's going to end up going somewhere else for whatever reason it is.
I think our staff did pretty well. Obviously, that was a big concern of ours to make sure that happened. We had felt that studying over the last few years some had gotten away, so we tried to stop that.

Q. Last year you had a lot of guys go away. How would you describe what happened today with you guys and with them compared to last year?
COACH KIFFIN: I don't know. I don't really study their class. I don't know what happened over there. I just know we're excited about our class. Got a bunch of local kids to stay home and play for the Trojans. Hopefully, we can continue to have success.

Q. Are there any players in particular on this list that you feel like have a very good chance to come in and play right away?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, it's hard to just point out a couple. I'd like to think that George Farmer would come in and contribute. He has all the intangibles to be a great player, but you never know.
We weren't able to have him in camp. We were able to watch a little film on him, but when you have the kids in camp, you're able to have more film on them. But height, weight, speed and character, he's off the charts. So I would think he would be the front line guy of all those guys.

Q. There is a report today that the NCAA is going to release findings out of Tennessee that is allegedly a failure of you to monitor. Are you aware of that report?
COACH KIFFIN: I can't believe you beat Scott to that question. I'm not going to comment on that. The last thing I'm going to do on national signing day is to comment on an internet article that just happened to come out today. So I have no comment on that, nor do I know anything about that.

Q. Was it somewhat of a different process this year with the sanctions?
COACH KIFFIN: I think two things were a little bit different. One, we're coming off of abnormal USC years record-wise. Then, obviously, with the sanctions and the Bowl ban. The scholarships are one thing to battle because people are worried about their futures. They want to come here and win so they want to know what the classes are like behind them.
But the Bowl game is a big deal. It's a very hard penalty to overcome. Kids want to play in Bowl games, so when it's taken away from them, they have to deal with it. So it does add a different element than we're used to battling, but it is what it is.

Q. Any of these players fullbacks?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, Soma will be here or is here. So in the spring we'll play him at fullback and look at him there. You do have a number of kids in here that could be defensive end, outside linebacker, fullback-type guys.
The good thing about having a class this size is we'll be able to experiment with those guys. I would anticipate a number of these guys red shirting for the long haul here.

Q. Do you have an idea what you're going to do with (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, we're going to start him at receiver and see what he can do. But during training camp, most of our guys we brought back and forth at some point to see. Marquis has been a great receiver and a great safety as well, so that is a very good problem to have.
You always want to find guys that can do more than one thing. Also, usually when they can play both of those, they'll be great special teams players as well. So that was kind of one of the last guys we didn't know for sure. I had a good feeling he was coming here for the last couple weeks, but that was a big addition today.

Q. Will he play basketball here? Will he be able to play basketball here?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, he'll be allowed to. It's something he's talked about doing, and if he wants to, we'll be all for it.

Q. What will you do with some of the underrated players on the squad this year?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, I think I would probably say that Amir Carlisle for a guy that was rated pretty high but not really high. You go back to look at what he did in high school. Here's a great student, a kid that was committed to Stanford for a while, and then committed to come to us.
Probably him and Anthony Sarao. Talking to guys that were at the All-Star game, some coaches that coached in it, they talked about how great he was in practice and competitive and smart he was. Both those guys are high character guys and big additions to us right there towards the end.

Q. Is Walker someone that you're looking at at tackle?
COACH KIFFIN: It's too hard to tell with the linemen sometimes. We'll bring them in and probably play him at tackle initially. He could be a guard as well. He's played both before. So it will be exciting to see him out there.

Q. Was that a spot where you won't red shirt as much?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, we'll just have to see. We'll just have to see how our guys have progressed. We'll have to look at it. Even the two J.C. kids that we brought in, both could red shirt as well, so we'll have to figure it out.

Q. How important is it -- kind of a statement kind of thing in these circumstances that only USC could pull something off like this, to have people saying maybe the best performance of the day is USC's signing class? How important a statement is that for USC?
COACH KIFFIN: I think it's very important for the Trojan family and for our fans. Two things here lately, first, the new facility, the groundbreaking. I said that that day in the midst of everything going on, I don't think people thought that would be happening. That type of money being put up for a brand-new facility. It's one thing we haven't had here and now we're going to have that.
I think people are looking towards this class to see is there anyway SC can hold up with all the stuff going on and be able to sign a quality class? So I hope we did that.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Like I said, it wouldn't be perfect. We already know that it's not perfect as far as guys that we offered with Devon going to Oregon. You'd like it to be perfect, but it's going to be hard.
It's always going to be hard. You're always going to have position things. Even though you want to kid that there are other guys at a position, they may see there are too many guys at a certain position. I think we've done pretty well, but it wasn't perfect, no.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Not necessarily, we've talked about it, but during camp we'll throw them around a couple of different positions and see. A couple of these guys could be outside backers, rush-in0type guys. It's going to be fun.
You've got a bunch of guys in the front seven to look at. That's something we haven't had in the last two years here as you look at the classes, so that was very critical. Someone will play because we're going to need them right away and some will red shirt.
What you hope is that now as we go into this fall, comparable to last fall, that we're going to be deeper on our scout teams. We had tryouts last fall from guys that were in school. We were bringing kids out that had never played football before to go against our first team guys and practice at scout teams. So I hope this will help that issue and make us better all around.

Q. Do you anticipate adding a few more players over the next day or two or for several weeks?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, could, definitely. We'll see. There are still some quality players out there around the country. So you never know. One of these years we're going to be done at this time and everybody's going to go home sometime, but once again, we haven't.
You never know. They go forever. Bryce Brown went an extra month two years ago when we were at Tennessee. Janzen Jackson went one extra day out of Louisiana, so you never know how long it's going to be.

Q. Whenever the penalties are finalized like scholarships, that they're not going to take away any of these?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, I'm not going to get into that. As our president, Max, talked about the other day, we're not going to have any comment on that and we'll wait for the results.

Q. You said that Pat Haden helped. How did he help as far as recruiting?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, he was very involved there for most of all of our weekends. Had some dinner with different sets of parents, communicating with them on unofficial visits as well. It was really good to have him around.
Also, he has a very good perspective for the guys because here's a guy that had a lot of opportunities out of high school. Almost went to Notre Dame, decided to come to SC. Obviously had a great career and has done a lot of things with his degree. So it was very valuable to have him, and he was more than willing to help.

Q. Can you sort of focus on (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, we wanted to make sure we had a good balance as we look at things and making sure that we're bringing in guys with high character, guys that really wanted to compete at the highest level.
I've said it before; we're not into guys that want to ask about depth charts and other guys that you have there and everything. We've said it before, go somewhere else. We want guys that want to do things right, and want to do things right off the field and compete at the highest level.

Q. You guys last year had trouble with the freshmen. Do you think you'll have less problems with this class?
COACH KIFFIN: I hope so. I'd like to have no problems. I think that our freshman class in general is very good. They did extremely well academically for the most part. Weren't perfect, but we'll continue to work with those guys and it be to improve them.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, I really haven't gotten to it at all. The focus was on this class. As I said, it was so critical this day here. I think it has a ton to do with our future here for a long time at USC. So I didn't want to distract from that.
Johnnie Morton had a great opportunity. We're very happy for him to go to San Francisco, and it was just too critical to make sure that we were focusing on this class and not on the future staff.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, we've talked about it, but I haven't done much except to tell him that as of tomorrow I'll really get going on it.

Q. Can you just talk a little bit about Buck Allen?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, Buck had a really good sophomore year down in Tallahassee Lincoln. Somebody we were aware of at Tennessee. He had an injury his junior year that set him back, and then he played well his senior year, especially late in the year. So this does give us a potential big back.
I think he'll probably come in here about 215, and we'll give him a shot and throw him in there. We have a number of quality backs on our roster, but not necessarily a young guy, a young, big guy.

Q. A week ago would you have thought this is the class you'll get or did things happen that put you into a better place than you thought you'd be?
COACH KIFFIN: You never know. You still don't know the last night sometimes. Until the fax comes in, I mean, I'm not going to get to who it was. We saw a very strange story today. There is another guy out there a long ways away, that you saw another strange story to another school.
So you never know until the faxes come in for sure. But I think that the out-of-state -- couple out-of-state hits that happened in the last few days were very big for us because those were really position of need and very quality players.

End of FastScripts

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