USC football at Pac-12 Media Day: Steve Sarkisian takes helm

The USC Trojans are getting ready to reboot and move past the ignominious Lane Kiffin era. Steve Sarkisian came down from Washington the moment it was clear the job was available to him, and he's ready to clean house and make things right.

Read Conquest Chronicles's writeup of Sarkisian's event for more details.

Coach Sarkisian has been both swift and confidently boisterous implementing his system in a slightly in your face, but very complimentary yet also down-to-earth manner. With all eyes and ears focused in during Wednesday's Pac-12 Media Day circus, coach Steve Sarkisian took the stand with a confident plan of action.

"Patience, patience, patience," Sarkisian said. "Having patience with players, having patience with recruits, having patience with our coaches of really taking time and not having knee-jerk reactions to things but really being patient with everybody involved in the program has been something that's shifted in me."

Here are some excerpts from his press conference with the media. You can view the transcript of his entire press conference here.

On leaving Washington (USA Today):

“I don’t know if you guys have ever had girlfriends,’’ he said Wednesday at the Pac-12 football media days. “When you break up with your girlfriend, it’s never easy. It’s always hard.

“You do it the best way you know how and you just try to be up front and honest. You try not to disrespect one school or another school or some kids and another kid,” he added. “In a perfect world, I wish I would have gotten to our players sooner so that I didn’t have to hear it from anybody else. But at the end of the day, I got that opportunity to get up in front of them and address them so they knew exactly where I was coming from.”

On playing in the Pac-12: "If you're not ready to play in our conference, you will get beat. It's that good." (USC Athletics)

On pace of the game: "Offensively, we're going to go fast. That's unlike anything seen at the Coliseum." (USC Athletics)

On gameplanning and preferring to run or pass: "I've had a 1,000-yard rusher all 5 of my years as a head coach. I believe in running the football." (Jeff Faraudo)

Playing Alabama in 2016: "I think they're more worried about Fresno State." (Lisa Horne)

On Leonard Williams: He was blown away by his 2013 tape. (Bryan Fischer)

On scholarship restrictions: USC will have 67 scholarships this fall. (Inside USC)

The fastest player on his team is...George Farmer. Farmer is also out of his cast and in great shape and out of his knee brace. (InsideUSC/Ted Miller)