How is USC moving on from Alex Grinch against Oregon?
Interim co-defensive coordinators Shaun Nua and Brian Odom are having to balance new defensive ideas with an awareness of players’ familiarity. ‘Every minute matters,’ Nua says.
USC DL coach Shaun Nua is one of two coaches sharing the role of defensive coordinator for the rest of the season after Alex Grinch was fired on Sunday. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Luca Evans (OC Register) — LOS ANGELES — There were four USC players scheduled to speak to reporters on Tuesday night, each strolling over from the practice field turf to the wall where availability is held, each lagging for a brief second with the throng of cameras assembled.
Linebacker Mason Cobb strode ahead, placing himself directly at the center of post-Alex Grinch scrutiny.
“I’ll go right in the middle,” said Cobb, a senior and team captain.
Three days earlier, Cobb was a shell of himself, face reserved and words clipped after the 52-42 loss that sealed former defensive coordinator Grinch’s fate. But before practice Tuesday, with a pair of assistant coaches now sharing one coordinator’s chair and general instability swirling before a final chance to save their season on Saturday, Cobb pulled the defense together and delivered a message: What’re you gonna do? Tuck your tail? Or stick your fist out and fight?
“It’s like you lose a brother, man,” Cobb said, referring to Grinch. “It hurts a little. It stings. But we have to keep focusing on the next game. That’s our only option.”
“There’s no – can’t lay down,” Cobb continued, as peppy as he’d been for weeks. “We don’t got time to lay down. We got Oregon this week, still.”
Collegiate football programs changing coordinators during a season, certainly, is not unprecedented; heck, Arkansas just fired its offensive coordinator a couple of weeks back. Less common, though, is firing a coordinator while days away from one final shot at a conference championship.
If USC (7-3 overall, 5-2 Pac-12) beats Oregon (8-1, 5-1) this Saturday and beats UCLA the following week – okay, a tall task, given the results of the past few months – the Trojans would earn a trip to Las Vegas with a shot at a Pac-12 championship trophy. And head coach Lincoln Riley made it clear Monday that he’d fired Grinch, in part, not as a white flag but because this team still had something to play for.
The caveat to that, though: do new co-defensive coordinators Shaun Nua and Brian Odom, elevated from respective roles as defensive line coach and inside linebackers coach, make any tweaks to the scheme Grinch set in place?
“That’s the million dollar question right now,” Nua said Tuesday.
Neither coaches nor players revealed much on Tuesday – Nua confirmed he’d be on the field Saturday and answered “We’ll see” when asked who would be in charge of play-calling. Odom, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of not straying far from concepts players were comfortable with. But the answer, still, to a million-dollar question appears to be yes. To a degree.
Cobb said he had talked with Odom on Sunday about the coach’s defensive ideas, and that Odom was listening to players’ opinions. And Nua acknowledged a change was made at coordinator to look for a defensive spark.
“We might go in with one call,” Nua said, “if that’s what it takes for them to fly around and play as physical as possible.”
The slate, in one sense, has been wiped clean. Cobb, someone who has said he has to immediately go home after games and watch them back multiple times, didn’t even watch film from the loss to Washington. But this USC team still brings a dizzying array of defensive question marks into one loud exclamation point of a Eugene atmosphere on Saturday.
Oregon has looked for several weeks like the best team in the Pac-12; the Ducks rank second in the nation in yards per game and have steamrolled an assortment of decent defensive units. There is no room to figure out new concepts on the fly. No room for error.
“My focus is, like, every minute matters now,” Nua said.
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Looking back [ in order to move forward] if there is one thing regarding USC defensive play: you have to pressure the QB and Penix was NOT pressured last Saturday. I remember ~ 2003, SC played Hawaii; Hawaii’s QB was the league’s leading passer, Timmy Chang. Timmy was ineffective; he was too busy ‘running for his life’ under immense pressure from the SC defense.
Timmy Chang is now in his 2nd year as HC of 3-7 Hawaii.
Chang was a four-year starter (‘0-04) at Hawai‘i where he set the NCAA’s all-time passing (17,072) and total offense (16,901) records. He finished his Rainbow Warrior career with 117 total TDs, which ranked third at the time.
Here’s Chang with Dan Lanning after losing to the Ducks in Eugene on Sept. 16, 55-10. His Rainbow Warriors just beat NEV last weekend 27-14. USC beat the Wolfpack 66-14 back on Sept. 2, when USC was still thought to be a possible playoff team.
There is a silver lining in all this mess. If we had an average defense, not good, just not poor; we would be 9-1 and in the hunt. Next year we will take a step back without Caleb, but our offense will still be good. With a good hire we can scrap together an average defense. The wheels haven’t fallen off quite yet.
Not sure how good the defense will be next year, but could it be any worse? Offense is going to be different, perhaps more structured and confined. Running the ball could be a good way to open lanes for passing. We have some good players returning and some good ones coming up. May be surprising.
How could it possibly be worse? We could do nothing at all, and just go let kids play. “I got him, I got him” schoolyard style, and it would most likely get better. We play fast, so we are not going to be a top 20 defense, too many possessions for both sides. It’s just math, more possessions equals more points. That’s fine. Just get a guy who gets stops at a normal rate and we can still win comfortably when we should be and stay in games against elite teams without having to be perfect on offense. That’s 100%… Read more »
Chris, if LR insists on playing fast on offense, even when it isn’t conducive to game clock management in the 4th quarter and costing us a win versus Utah, that puts more pressure on the defense during a game and that demands rotation of players. That means recruiting more defensive players and I don’t see LR cutting into his number of offensive side scholarships too much. He just told the press we will have a very good defense soon. Really? I don’t see that happening for another two years at the earliest. JMO
The D could be worse, but as long as LR remains HC, the focus will remain on offensive plays and the D will be an afterthought, if time permits. Focus needs to shift from an abundance of (O) playmakers to linemen. There needs to be many more runs … run blocking is attacking the defense whereas pass blocking is back pedaling. And the defensive schemes of Grinch have been mind numbing: 3 down linemen rushing Penix while 8 drop back into a loose, deep zone. That only worked in the 1st half against SC by AZ which had 7 DBs… Read more »
I hope you are right Golden, my expectations include a next man up system on offense and we have the talent in place. Riley’s supposed gift is creating great quarterback prospects. We need to wean ourselves off the portal where table scraps and leftovers are the usual fare. If rebuild the pipelines (by pressing the flesh and visits) we could tap back into a talent pool. Someday an offer from USC will be coveted.
Portal is only going to be more prevalent. Dont judge our defense by our pickups. Gentry, Cobb, CRW, Barrs, and Sullivan all produced at other stops. If they did that here we would have a solid D. I do not think it is personnel and much as scheme. Portal guys have college film to look at, less risk than high school kids. While I agree that it should be a higher focus on recruiting high school, portal isn’t going away.
The talent on defense improved this season with more depth. With better talent the defense got worse. It became obvious to all even finally to LR what the problem was. I believe Riley said at one point maybe last year, that USC would become less reliant on the portal and build depth from HS recruits. Hope he holds to that. Hope that new DC comes soon for December 20th signing day.
Did LR think his nice compensation of riches was going to cut him a lot of slack in the beginning? A certain HC at TAM will inform him it works the opposite! The more to get paid the lesser the honeymoon is how it works. In fact, LR took the easy way out cherry picking the Portal for unhappy marginal players with some experience being invited to the west coast with the weather, Hollywood and all instead of working his butt off spending 24-hr days chasing HS athletes to sign up and be developed in two years ready for the… Read more »
Jamaica, NIce to hear from you. I disagree a bit. I think the issue is how LR views running an elite program. I gave my views of how I see his views below (All O, not much D, no special teams and finesse O based S&C). I think those views are honestly held, after all, until this year, he had never lost more that 2 regular seasons games, never lost more than 3 games (that was last year, and prior to that had never lost more than 2 games) AND had always had a top 10 team. So, why would… Read more »
RJJ good to hear from you! My beginning was a reflection of my thoughts on how he would immediately rebuild. Would he do it the right & honest way or take shortcuts? But I feel just like you do in his belief what happened at OK would happen here and it happened only so long. Now he has a major rebuilding program at least on one side of the LOS and some on his beloved O- side. As you say, we have no clue how it will come to be in the next year or two. He took over a… Read more »
I think if PC or McKay had the portal they would have used it as needed. I think Riley did everything he could to build a winner for Caleb and ride it out. Every school in the nation dips into the portal. What Riley inherited from Helton created a situation of going deep into the portal. I agree the HS recruiting could be better, and had USC gotten into the game with the $$ necessary to bring in the 5* prima donnas the cupboard would not look quite as bare. But then we have five stars that haven’t performed also,… Read more »
On today’s The Herd, Joel Klatt is all over Caleb Williams as the next Patrick Mahomes in the NFL.
This may not be earth-shattering news, but it continues to accentuate that USC’s disappointing ’23 team will not hurt Caleb’s #1 draft stature, as well as point out that without Caleb, LR would be in a world of hurt.
Your are right, I forgot about the Bears. As Mandel correctly IMO points out, LR is going to have to change his approach to being a HC. I think he can and will, but, of course, do not really know. What I do know is that LR either changes or SC becomes Texas A&M west for the next six years or so.
Stewart Mandel’s Mailbag (The Athletic) Q — Is it extreme to say that USC’s defensive coordinator hire might be the most important in the program’s history? Mandel — I would say that’s quite extreme. And not just because I have no idea whether Howard Jones in the 1930s or John McKay in the 1960s made some crucial make-or-break coordinator hire of their own. Lincoln Riley needs to get the right coach, but it’d be too simplistic to think that he either lures a Jim Leonhard or Tim DeRuyter and the Trojans are off to the national championship or he hires one… Read more »
Allen, I hope LR feels this way in that his hiring of a new DC AND his commitment to that DC is extremely important and will be watched very closely by all Trojan faithful. I have read that new AD Jen Cohen knows something about football and is a shrewd judge of coaching talent. I hope LR is secure enough in his ego today, in confirming with her who that ideal DC target should be. The press is already daring Riley to hire some compatible air raid lackey that won’t demand the needed “piece of the meat” recruiting & coaching… Read more »
It’s been revealing to see how the CFB media has lately downgraded its opinion of LR. He’s being called out now all over the place for his lack of overall head coaching acumen.
This is the remark from Stewart Mandel that cracked me up the most:
“…But it’d be too simplistic to think that he either lures a Jim Leonhard or Tim DeRuyter and the Trojans are off to the national championship or he hires one of his buddies from Muleshoe and they’re doomed to another year with one of the worst defenses in the country.”
Allen, I agree with Stewart. LR has structured his approach as (1) only O matters, (2) D is an afterthought and really is not that important, (3) special teams are not important at all, and (4) strength and conditions should focus on O skills – lean and fast. This approach worked at OK; it worked for the first 12 games of 2022 (11-1) and then crashed an burned (7-5 since and on the way to either 8-6 or 7-7). It will crash and burn big time in the B1G. Stewart is correct that LR will need to change at least… Read more »
I don’t expect the 2024 season to be pretty for USC and LR. Lots of changes, some new coaches (maybe systems too), and upgrades are obviously necessary, More travel, less familiarity with new opponents. Recruiting needs to pick-up big-time too.
Allen, I am with you on that one. I think at best 8-4 next year and am expecting 6-6. SC will be eliminated from the national discussion by week 4 when we play MI in the Big House (after playing LSU in Vegas). LR has a long way to go to get SC back to where he had it at the end of 2022. We are going to have to be patient. LR may well have another first next year – SC not included in the top pre-season 25 programs (and it should not be). If SC loses to LSU… Read more »
Lincoln Riley deserves blame (The Athletic) Manny Navarro — Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but as Riley became less committed to the run, Alex Grinch’s defenses got progressively worse in the five seasons they worked together. In 2019, Oklahoma averaged 40 rushing attempts per game (47th), and Grinch’s defense allowed 27.3 points per game (64th). In 2020, the Sooners ran it 38 times per game (61st) and finished 21st in scoring defense (21.7). In 2021, the Sooners ran it 34 times per game (98th), and Grinch’s defense allowed 25.8 points per game (58th). Last year at USC, the Trojans ran it 33 times per game (94th),… Read more »
Running would slow down the opponents points per game, but we still haven’t stopped anyone. Instead of losing 52-42, we would lose 42-32. Not sure that’s any better.
I guess he is referring to time of possession by the offense wearing out your defense. USC TOP avg per game is 27:57 to their opponents 32:03. NCAA stats for 2023 puts USC at 114th in the nation. The top team in the nation is Utah at 34 minutes. Does an extra 6 minutes on the field gas a defense? A quick short pass to the RB in the back field is essentially a run but counts as a pass. I wonder how many of those there are per game? Last game USC ran it 12 and passed 11 to… Read more »
USC DL coach Shaun Nua is one of two coaches sharing the role of defensive coordinator for the rest of the season after Alex Grinch was fired on Sunday. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
“There’s no – can’t lay down,” 
The caveat to that, though: do new co-defensive coordinators 
Looking back [ in order to move forward] if there is one thing regarding USC defensive play: you have to pressure the QB and Penix was NOT pressured last Saturday. I remember ~ 2003, SC played Hawaii; Hawaii’s QB was the league’s leading passer, Timmy Chang. Timmy was ineffective; he was too busy ‘running for his life’ under immense pressure from the SC defense.
Timmy Chang is now in his 2nd year as HC of 3-7 Hawaii.
Chang was a four-year starter (‘0-04) at Hawai‘i where he set the NCAA’s all-time passing (17,072) and total offense (16,901) records. He finished his Rainbow Warrior career with 117 total TDs, which ranked third at the time.
Here’s Chang with Dan Lanning after losing to the Ducks in Eugene on Sept. 16, 55-10. His Rainbow Warriors just beat NEV last weekend 27-14. USC beat the Wolfpack 66-14 back on Sept. 2, when USC was still thought to be a possible playoff team.
There is a silver lining in all this mess. If we had an average defense, not good, just not poor; we would be 9-1 and in the hunt. Next year we will take a step back without Caleb, but our offense will still be good. With a good hire we can scrap together an average defense. The wheels haven’t fallen off quite yet.
Not sure how good the defense will be next year, but could it be any worse? Offense is going to be different, perhaps more structured and confined. Running the ball could be a good way to open lanes for passing. We have some good players returning and some good ones coming up. May be surprising.
How could it possibly be worse? We could do nothing at all, and just go let kids play. “I got him, I got him” schoolyard style, and it would most likely get better. We play fast, so we are not going to be a top 20 defense, too many possessions for both sides. It’s just math, more possessions equals more points. That’s fine. Just get a guy who gets stops at a normal rate and we can still win comfortably when we should be and stay in games against elite teams without having to be perfect on offense. That’s 100%… Read more »
Chris, if LR insists on playing fast on offense, even when it isn’t conducive to game clock management in the 4th quarter and costing us a win versus Utah, that puts more pressure on the defense during a game and that demands rotation of players. That means recruiting more defensive players and I don’t see LR cutting into his number of offensive side scholarships too much. He just told the press we will have a very good defense soon. Really? I don’t see that happening for another two years at the earliest. JMO
We’re only the 54th fastest offense. We’re not that fast. And we slow as the game progresses.
Sure gonna miss this fast guy when he’s gone
The D could be worse, but as long as LR remains HC, the focus will remain on offensive plays and the D will be an afterthought, if time permits. Focus needs to shift from an abundance of (O) playmakers to linemen. There needs to be many more runs … run blocking is attacking the defense whereas pass blocking is back pedaling. And the defensive schemes of Grinch have been mind numbing: 3 down linemen rushing Penix while 8 drop back into a loose, deep zone. That only worked in the 1st half against SC by AZ which had 7 DBs… Read more »
I am anxious to see Nelson and Lemon team up. They could be as good as Williams and Addison, Barkley and Woods.
Thats a high bar, but I’m hoping along side you. Duce, Lemon, and ZB will be dynamic.
There will be plenty of skill players on offense. The usual problems of this season still need to be addressed.
I hope you are right Golden, my expectations include a next man up system on offense and we have the talent in place. Riley’s supposed gift is creating great quarterback prospects. We need to wean ourselves off the portal where table scraps and leftovers are the usual fare. If rebuild the pipelines (by pressing the flesh and visits) we could tap back into a talent pool. Someday an offer from USC will be coveted.
Portal is only going to be more prevalent. Dont judge our defense by our pickups. Gentry, Cobb, CRW, Barrs, and Sullivan all produced at other stops. If they did that here we would have a solid D. I do not think it is personnel and much as scheme. Portal guys have college film to look at, less risk than high school kids. While I agree that it should be a higher focus on recruiting high school, portal isn’t going away.
The talent on defense improved this season with more depth. With better talent the defense got worse. It became obvious to all even finally to LR what the problem was. I believe Riley said at one point maybe last year, that USC would become less reliant on the portal and build depth from HS recruits. Hope he holds to that. Hope that new DC comes soon for December 20th signing day.
Did LR think his nice compensation of riches was going to cut him a lot of slack in the beginning? A certain HC at TAM will inform him it works the opposite! The more to get paid the lesser the honeymoon is how it works. In fact, LR took the easy way out cherry picking the Portal for unhappy marginal players with some experience being invited to the west coast with the weather, Hollywood and all instead of working his butt off spending 24-hr days chasing HS athletes to sign up and be developed in two years ready for the… Read more »
Jamaica, NIce to hear from you. I disagree a bit. I think the issue is how LR views running an elite program. I gave my views of how I see his views below (All O, not much D, no special teams and finesse O based S&C). I think those views are honestly held, after all, until this year, he had never lost more that 2 regular seasons games, never lost more than 3 games (that was last year, and prior to that had never lost more than 2 games) AND had always had a top 10 team. So, why would… Read more »
RJJ good to hear from you! My beginning was a reflection of my thoughts on how he would immediately rebuild. Would he do it the right & honest way or take shortcuts? But I feel just like you do in his belief what happened at OK would happen here and it happened only so long. Now he has a major rebuilding program at least on one side of the LOS and some on his beloved O- side. As you say, we have no clue how it will come to be in the next year or two. He took over a… Read more »
I think if PC or McKay had the portal they would have used it as needed. I think Riley did everything he could to build a winner for Caleb and ride it out. Every school in the nation dips into the portal. What Riley inherited from Helton created a situation of going deep into the portal. I agree the HS recruiting could be better, and had USC gotten into the game with the $$ necessary to bring in the 5* prima donnas the cupboard would not look quite as bare. But then we have five stars that haven’t performed also,… Read more »
On today’s The Herd, Joel Klatt is all over Caleb Williams as the next Patrick Mahomes in the NFL.
This may not be earth-shattering news, but it continues to accentuate that USC’s disappointing ’23 team will not hurt Caleb’s #1 draft stature, as well as point out that without Caleb, LR would be in a world of hurt.
Allen, Totally agree on Caleb and the outcome. My guess is without him, this team would be 4-6, with additional losses to CO, ASU and AZ.
Maybe CAL too.
The woeful 3-6 Bears put up 49 on that vaunted USC D. Only the NORTH TEXAS MEAN GREEN allowed more.
Your are right, I forgot about the Bears. As Mandel correctly IMO points out, LR is going to have to change his approach to being a HC. I think he can and will, but, of course, do not really know. What I do know is that LR either changes or SC becomes Texas A&M west for the next six years or so.
Yeah, it’s a bitter-sweet opinion.
Stewart Mandel’s Mailbag (The Athletic) Q — Is it extreme to say that USC’s defensive coordinator hire might be the most important in the program’s history? Mandel — I would say that’s quite extreme. And not just because I have no idea whether Howard Jones in the 1930s or John McKay in the 1960s made some crucial make-or-break coordinator hire of their own. Lincoln Riley needs to get the right coach, but it’d be too simplistic to think that he either lures a Jim Leonhard or Tim DeRuyter and the Trojans are off to the national championship or he hires one… Read more »
Allen, I hope LR feels this way in that his hiring of a new DC AND his commitment to that DC is extremely important and will be watched very closely by all Trojan faithful. I have read that new AD Jen Cohen knows something about football and is a shrewd judge of coaching talent. I hope LR is secure enough in his ego today, in confirming with her who that ideal DC target should be. The press is already daring Riley to hire some compatible air raid lackey that won’t demand the needed “piece of the meat” recruiting & coaching… Read more »
It’s been revealing to see how the CFB media has lately downgraded its opinion of LR. He’s being called out now all over the place for his lack of overall head coaching acumen.
This is the remark from Stewart Mandel that cracked me up the most:
“…But it’d be too simplistic to think that he either lures a Jim Leonhard or Tim DeRuyter and the Trojans are off to the national championship or he hires one of his buddies from Muleshoe and they’re doomed to another year with one of the worst defenses in the country.”
Allen, I agree with Stewart. LR has structured his approach as (1) only O matters, (2) D is an afterthought and really is not that important, (3) special teams are not important at all, and (4) strength and conditions should focus on O skills – lean and fast. This approach worked at OK; it worked for the first 12 games of 2022 (11-1) and then crashed an burned (7-5 since and on the way to either 8-6 or 7-7). It will crash and burn big time in the B1G. Stewart is correct that LR will need to change at least… Read more »
I don’t expect the 2024 season to be pretty for USC and LR. Lots of changes, some new coaches (maybe systems too), and upgrades are obviously necessary, More travel, less familiarity with new opponents. Recruiting needs to pick-up big-time too.
Allen, I am with you on that one. I think at best 8-4 next year and am expecting 6-6. SC will be eliminated from the national discussion by week 4 when we play MI in the Big House (after playing LSU in Vegas). LR has a long way to go to get SC back to where he had it at the end of 2022. We are going to have to be patient. LR may well have another first next year – SC not included in the top pre-season 25 programs (and it should not be). If SC loses to LSU… Read more »
This is a great take! Spot on!
#3 MICH at #10 PSU should be a good one to start the day off with at 9 am PT (Fox). USC plays them both next season.
Have to wait all day until 7:30 PT for USC at ORE (Fox).
I will need a Saturday afternoon nap to stay up and watch the carnage we suffer in Eugene.
Lincoln Riley deserves blame (The Athletic) Manny Navarro — Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but as Riley became less committed to the run, Alex Grinch’s defenses got progressively worse in the five seasons they worked together. In 2019, Oklahoma averaged 40 rushing attempts per game (47th), and Grinch’s defense allowed 27.3 points per game (64th). In 2020, the Sooners ran it 38 times per game (61st) and finished 21st in scoring defense (21.7). In 2021, the Sooners ran it 34 times per game (98th), and Grinch’s defense allowed 25.8 points per game (58th). Last year at USC, the Trojans ran it 33 times per game (94th),… Read more »
Maybe with the embarrassment of riches at WR, he just can’t overcome the temptation to play with all those new shiny toys.
Interesting comment about Lincoln’s seemingly constant plethora of “new shiny toys”.
Where’s Woody when you need him?
😉
No coincidence.
Running would slow down the opponents points per game, but we still haven’t stopped anyone. Instead of losing 52-42, we would lose 42-32. Not sure that’s any better.
I guess he is referring to time of possession by the offense wearing out your defense. USC TOP avg per game is 27:57 to their opponents 32:03. NCAA stats for 2023 puts USC at 114th in the nation. The top team in the nation is Utah at 34 minutes. Does an extra 6 minutes on the field gas a defense? A quick short pass to the RB in the back field is essentially a run but counts as a pass. I wonder how many of those there are per game? Last game USC ran it 12 and passed 11 to… Read more »
There is a difference between a QB coach and head coach…..does Riley know this…..so far the answer is a no.