Riley: New defensive staff ‘takes a backseat to no one’
It began with seven names on a whiteboard.
Staff had rolled it into Lincoln Riley’s office at USC this winter, for a brainstorming session that could one day become legend if Riley’s penultimate plans for this program pay off. They had no defensive coordinator, firing Alex Grinch midseason after an ultimately ineffective two seasons next to Riley, left with shards of a doomed philosophy. Riley had repeatedly promised improvement, but those words were hollow without any changes.
So they sat down, Riley reflected Thursday, and scribbled down a list of names of potential defensive hires on that whiteboard. The dream list, as Riley put it. If they could get anyone. They landed on seven names.
They ended up hiring four of them, Riley said.
“I think we have a staff right now that takes a backseat to no one, period,” Riley said Thursday, addressing a room of media in USC’s John McKay Center.
And then he doubled down. “I believe no one in football, not just college football,” USC’s head coach continued. “And that was kinda the goal.”
D’Anton Lynn. Eric Henderson. Matt Entz. Doug Belk. The world may never know the three other names on the dream list, but the eventual reality positions USC’s staff with a wealth of NFL and collegiate-coordinator experience, an eclectic mix of personalities and schematic backgrounds who’ve come together in one common goal: embracing the challenge of restoring USC to defensive glory.
And in wide-ranging one-on-one media sessions Thursday, each staffer’s first time speaking in person since arriving at USC, each specifically mentioned being drawn to the program in large part because of Riley’s vision.
“I think, we have to change the narrative,” said Belk, the secondary coach and former Houston defensive coordinator.”Everybody in the world knows what Coach Riley has been able to do with quarterbacks ... and I think our energy has to be, that we have to match that. We have to set the tempo, we have to be aggressive, we have to be physical.”
The football coaching world has been completely upended in the past couple months, a variety of NFL teams creating and filling headcoaching positions and Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s retirement setting off a carousel throughout college football. Through it all, Riley — a longtime savant who’s been near-constantly hypothesized and rumored to ascend to the NFL — stayed pat, wholly focused on filling positions at USC rather than seeking them elsewhere. His explanation Thursday for sticking at USC, to the “climb” he’s always preached, was simple.
“I want to get it it right here,” Riley said. “I really do. I want it really bad. Not for me, I just want it really bad for this program, I want it really bad for this current team, the former players, the former coaches, the fans, the university, just, we left everything that we left (at Oklahoma) — we want it really, really bad here.”
Getting it right starts, first and foremost, with the four coaches who strode to the podium one by one Thursday in the McKay Center. Lynn, hired away from UCLA after just his first year as a collegiate coordinator, was measured but polite, a 34-yearold carrying himself with the quiet confidence of decades of experience. Belk carried himself much the same, more analytical in nature. Entz was tough, intellectual and brutally honest, the former North Dakota State head coach taking a demotion in order to come to USC and the FBS. He was betting, he said, on not just himself but Riley’s vision.
Henderson was the ultimate standout, the former Rams defensive-line coach booming with pride, confidence and authenticity. Lynn and Henderson had stayed in touch long after coaching-assistant positions together with the 2017 Chargers; when he saw a fit for Henderson at USC, Lynn said, he “knew a phone call wouldn’t hurt.” And the passion for a rebuild rung deep in Henderson’s voice, describing bringing his #DAWGwork slogan to USC, the DAWG being an acronym: discipline, attitude, work ethic, grit.
“When you talk about work, right, being obsessed with greatness,” Henderson said. “Approach, attacking that with a relentless mindset, and then having that killer instinct about you.”
Riley made clear Thursday that, despite the co-coordinator labels, the defense would be in Lynn’s vision — the ultimate decision-maker, no split duties. But there’s now an abundance of cooks in this kitchen, and even in simple introductory pressers, there were obvious offsetting defensive philosophies. All seemed to be in accordance with Lynn’s 4-2-5-heavy scheme; but Lynn described a goal of “aggressive” pre-snap communication and a goal to “overcommunicate,” which came into direct conflict with Entz’s words an hour later.
“The more you have to put on them and the more they have to think pre-snap and post-snap, the slower they’re going to be,” Entz said, adding later he’d had input from current linebackers at USC that there was excessive communication required. “The last thing you want to have defensively is to have a bunch of processing individuals playing defense.”
This multi-pronged partnership is still in its infant stages, however, as all have been out on the recruiting trail. And all described their goal of a room without ego — Entz was here to “help drive the vehicle,” he put it, not be in charge of it — in support of Riley’s common goal.
“He is determined to play elite defense by any means,” Lynn said Thursday. “And I believe him, and I believe in him.”