FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: D’Anton Lynn Rebuilds Defense

USC’s entire defensive staff was given notice that they would only return if they were rehired by new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, according to sources.

The fact Lincoln Riley gave Lynn this power is a departure for Riley but also underscores the massive job required to rebuild the defense. To his credit, Lynn got the authority required to improve the staff.

Donte Williams knew he wasn’t returning and was able to find a job at Georgia. The fate of defensive line coach Shaun Nua seems to be up in the air. It appears linebackers coach Roy Manning could stay, possibly to coach safeties.

Things are not always going smoothly either. Linebackers coach Brian Odom found out he was being replaced via the Internet, when it was announced USC hired Matt Entz. Odom is still coaching bowl practices and is expected to depart after the Holiday Bowl.

59 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: D’Anton Lynn Rebuilds Defense”

  1. I love the makeup job Lincoln Riley’s doing, but the results will still be the same without dominating both sides of the line of scrimmage. And there are absolutely no signs of improvement in that area, other then a hope and a prayer finding a washed up player in the transfer portal like he usually does

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    1. “Here’s the plan, Jake —a 100th ranked QB coached by Kliff Kingsbury protected by ‘washed up players outta the portal’…and a badass defensive staff stuck with a mixed group of talent. Okay with you?”
      —Lincoln Riley

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    2. Disagree that we know the status of this yet. The offensive line will depend upon the ability to develop some talented young players. Paige, Noa, Pregnon, Banuelos are all potentially talented. Zandamela could potentially play in his freshman year, but if he doesnt, he should be great by the next year. Monheim might come back. I think Raymond is the sleeper in the group, who will be ready to back-up Monheim. I am not saying this is a sure thing, but they have potential.

      D-line has Bear and Braylon Shelby as real stars. They need to fill it out either by getting guys like Hughes to deliver or bringing in new talent. They need more bodies here, but they made some nice pickups recently.

      The problem last year was the retarded coaching and schemes and player development and player evaluation/recruiting on the defensive side.

      For wide receivers they need to focus on getting a couple stars out of their talented potential stars. Less substitution and more reps for the best in the group.

      Im not saying things are great at USC. But the future is not clear yet. At least there is no Grinch.

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  2. I think that Riley is definitely feeling the heat. I don’t have a clue why this wasn’t done last year. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I will continue to watch-for now.

    As a long time USC fan, last year was the FIRST time that I didn’t bother to watch a few games-nor finish watching most of the others.

    Merry Christmas all!

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    1. ” I don’t have a clue why this wasn’t done last year. ”

      I’ll tell you why, Bohn was the AD, he hired Riley and wasn’t going to meddle, then Bohn got canned and Cohen was hired, she had no connection to Riley and I’ll bet she lit a HGE fire under his ass to fix the shit on defense or else.

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  3. I’m no fan of Riley and he inherited a shit show BUT he did not help himself by having that idiot Grinch at DC and then not firing him a year ago.

    Lynn knows tough football, so does Entz and so does Belk having worked for Saben & Kirby Smart. I don’t know about Tua, could be him having to coach that speed defense shit with undersized linemen wasn’t for him, maybe a tougher style of defense and bigger DL’s will suit him better.

    Manning may be looking for a job, Belk coaches the DB’s, Entz the LB’s, where is Manning going to coach ?

    Kingsbury needs to leave and now, not sold on either WR coach since none of our WR’s seem to get better, but I doubt any offensive coach gets axed.

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    1. Historically the Mike Leach offense produces self inflicted weak defenses, because they stay on the field too long. Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma teams gave up at least 30-35 points per game. So I don’t care how many changes he makes on the defensive side of the ball this offense, his philosophy which lacks a running game will never produce Big Ten success.

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      1. I agree, if he continues with his Air Raid idiocy SC is still doomed, but the defense will be better and the culture, at least on the defensive side of the ball, will be toughness instead of finesse

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      2. Like I said before, These last 2 years he hasn’t run the offense he ran at Oklahoma for 7 years. He should go back to that. Look at the stats…..for those 7 years he ran the ball 55% of the time and they ran it well.

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      3. A Mike Leach offense has ZERO to do with SC db’s not ever covering receivers and nobody tackling or being in their assigned gaps along the line. In fact under Mike Leach the Grinch defenses at Wash St were top Pac12 defenses.

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      1. If he repeats the idiotic plan of last season,making players who had been good at the position they were recruited for,switch to the opposite side…I agree.

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  4. ‘Wiley can’t do this, Wiley can’t do that’ cry-out the Trojan faithful
    Meanwhile Wiles is thinking “But I am the ‘100-million dollar guy,
    so take that, fans’

    Undersized guys like Tackett Curtis can be sensational at the high school level
    where most every player is undersized or is not ‘college material,’
    and then they go to the ‘bigs’ where offensive linemen are about 300-pounds each

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      1. He played safety in high school, so maybe he needed some time to develop into a linebacker instead of being thrown in there from game one.

        I still think Tackett could be really great in the right scheme/coaching.

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    3. a 100 true frosh starting was a 100% dumbass idea…he should have worked into the games…his performances were newbie-ish…

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  6. In other words it takes players, a lot of good players to make up a defense
    And we’re slowly finding out a lot of these guys in the Portal were wash-outs

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    1. It’ll be very interesting to see how hard the team plays in the Holiday Bowl with all the chaos [necessary chaos but nevertheless chaos] going on …
      #CanRileyGetThemJackedUp?

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      1. It must suck that your life has been reduced to trolling a clown show blog 24/7…. Waiting for your lame excuse…. 3-2-1!!!!!!

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      2. It must suck to be Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & Michael Guarino & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young and supporting antisemitic traitorous Democrats committing Insurrection in the nation’s Capitol today.

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      3. Claiming someone else’s life sucks, as he hides behind other peoples’ names.

        I’m going to pray you get the help you need, Gabriela/Tebow.

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  7. Thank you, Riley Coyote for saving me a lot of money next year. 2024 Trojan Fund Donation $0. Trojan Season Tickets $0. I write this as I am sitting in a hotel in Seattle after watching Pete Carroll do another great coaching job beating the defending NFC Champions with a backup QB and his top cornerback out. Sad that I have to fly two hours so be able to remember what real football looks like.

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    1. Ha! You are cleverly borrowing on Reggie Bush’s phraseology after one of USC’s losses: “How many more recruits will this attract? Zero more!”

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  8. I think you guys are being too pessimistic about the future of the program. Riley is arguably the best offensive mind in college football. Yes, the Air Raid puts pressure on the defense, so why can’t this great offensive mind modify it with more of a power running game. And the freshman offensive line class looks like a really good one with Paige, Noa, and Tatalele. Moss was praising Paige the other day. And yes the defense was a disaster but it looks like Riley is genuine about rebuilding it. He gave Lynn full authority of the firing and hiring of the entire defensive coaching staff. That was a big move.

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      2. We know you can spell just fine… We all make errors, except the blog dunce. He acts like a professor of english

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      3. We know you are a plague on this blog, Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & Michael Guarino & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young. It’s fun to see your hero and role model Hunter Biden sneaking into the White House today.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Cowardly Gabby aka TebowObama aka The Guy who posts as So Cal’s Wife & Michael Guarino & LawyerJohn & Pudly & Plow Horse & steveg49 & DOJ & Scott Wolf and Frank Young is a very bad person:

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    2. A poster above stated that Riley DID run more at OU, maybe he thought the OL wasn’t conducive to running but I think it had more to do with Williams audibling out of nearly every play at the LOS, and if that’s the case then that’s on Riley for not telling him to knock that off, we may see a far different offense with him gone and Howard in ( if he in fact is coming )

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      1. Williams was a huge talent —with a huge ego [“everybody would like to be in these size 12 shoes” …wtf?!]. Riley wouldn’t or couldn’t control him …and the team got turned off by the whole situation —mailing it in against UCLA.
        We will miss Caleb…. but we’ll be a better TEAM w/o him.

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      4. If I were an NFL team I would be real cautious about Caleb. In the NFL you dont want a QB that has to scramble for 10 seconds to find an open receiver.

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      2. Relay to me just how good was Norm Chow as a HC – 2012 – 2015 – 4 years at HI in the MTN West Conference

        2012 Hawaii 3–9 1–7 9th
        2013 Hawaii 1–11 0–8 6th (West)
        2014 Hawaii 4–9 3–5 4th (West)
        2015 Hawaii 2–7 0–6 6th (West)

        Overall 10 – 46

        Lincoln Riley may have slipped but Chow’s record as head coach was abominable by any measurement.

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    4. ‘Ol Mule Shoe the “best offensive mind in college football”…LMFAO!

      Yeah, the 3 total yards rushing vs UCLA was really impressive. A fucking high school football coach could have figured out some plays that would have gained more yards.

      And this shit about Riley developing QB’s, that’s more bullshit. Riley is lucky that he’s had QB’s that were mobile enough to scramble and improvise on the run. Most of USC’s big plays and TD’s were due to Caleb Williams running around creating plays on his own, off busted plays from Riley’s shit play calling.

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      1. …that “running around” for 10 seconds was what led to receivers getting fed up and the o-line breaking down….
        #ADozenTD’sIn2023OffPlaysInvolvingScrambles
        #….Vs.
        #…AHundredThatWentNowhereOrBackwards…
        #[OrResultedInFumbles]

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      2. Caleb just gave you two middle fingers………it’s pathetic you’re now throwing him under the bus.

        tell us about Sola?……

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    5. True that determined paladin – all true. The real impetus for change is Bohn is gone and Cohen wants to make her mark to confirm she was a smart hire. It is Cohen Riley has to satisfy and Caruso no longer has to play the ‘dutch uncle’ – Riley has 2 years to fix it.

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      1. The answer is twofold:
        1) Fix the defense and take defense seriously
        2) Go back to the offense you ran at Oklahoma

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  9. Scooter,

    Riley might have put on his big boy pants by reliquishing control over the defense. Smart move to allow Lynn choose his coaches. Yes, ti falls on Riley, but With Riley’s blessing, Lynn can get the people who he wants. Let us see if Lynn can make the right choice and run the correct defense. We will see.

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    1. This clown D’anton Lynn will turn out to be another Donte Williams…not worth a shit.

      Riley hired Lynn and Jen Cohen said, “Fuck, looks like I’m going to have to find a real coach that knows what the fuck he’s doing otherwise we’ll really be screwed next year” so she hired Matt Entz.

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  10. Lincoln probably did not have a choice. The new AD probably reminded him of his place in the pecking order. He has two years to get to the playoffs, or he is gone.

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  11. A DC should have a high % of choice who will be on the staff to coach the defense,but the Head Coach should have the final approval…it is only a part of the team,of which the head coach is the one responsible.

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    1. Agreed but if said HC is fixated on giving his ‘best friend’ full control of half the team and any 3rd party – 12 mos., can see the result is a mess – then condoning said HC the right in retaining his ‘best friend’ as DC is why here (USC) or at any recognized legacy program – this would not be best for the program – that and allowing the QB to avoid meeting the media after losing

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  12. Tim Leftwich
    You said “under Mike Leach the Grinch defenses(plural) at Wash St were top Pac12 defenses”. It’s not “defenses”(plural) but defense(singular). That was in 2017. Grinch was DC at WSU under Mike Leach for 3 years 2015, 2016, and 2017. In 2015 they finished 93rd in yards per game given up. In 2016 they finished 80th. In 2015 they finished 15th. 2015 was the one good year he had in his career as a DC.
    As far as the Leach offense is concerned….LR used that a lot in his days as an OC at East Carolina. When he went to Oklahoma he became more balanced in run/pass. At SC he seems to be going back. At least that’s the way it seems to me. In his years at ECU the run/pass ratio was 37%/63%. At Oklahoma it was 55%/45%(a lot more running the ball). Last year(2022) it was 43%/57%. He seems to me to be going back to the Leach air raid days. His best offenses were at Oklahoma.

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