Williams out, Belk in as secondary coach
LOS ANGELES » A window on USC's coaching staff cracked open and slammed shut within the span of two hours Saturday, as good a sign as any of the winds of change sweeping through the program's cultural overhaul on defense.
After four years of highimpact recruiting but inconsistent positional results, defensive backs coach Donte Williams announced his departure from USC on Twitter on Saturday afternoon, with reports breaking shortly after that he was set to accept a defensive backs job with Georgia.
A little more than two hours after announcing his departure, Williams posted a photo of Georgia's bulldog mascot and wrote “GoDawgs.”
“I would like to thank Coach Helton, Coach Riley, and all the amazing coaches I was able to work with and learn from these past four years at USC,” Williams wrote in his initial Twitter statement Saturday. “I am also thankful for Mike Bohn, Brandon Sosna, President Folt, and the administration who were welcoming and extremely easy to work with throughout my time here. I am grateful for all of you.”
“Thank you to the Fans, Donors, Rick Caruso, and the incredible alumni that looked after me and my family. Most importantly, thank you to the players for the memories and allowing me to coach you. When one Chapter closes another one Begins.”
His final words were proven definitively true shortly thereafter, as USC announced it had hired Houston defensive coordinator Doug Belk as its new secondary coach. It's the third high-impact defensive hire head coach Lincoln Riley has made in the past two weeks, starting with tabbing D'Anton Lynn as USC's new defensive coordinator and poaching North Dakota State's Matt Entz away from an FCS head-coaching gig as USC's newest linebackers coach.
“Doug Belk is another tremendous addition to our staff,” Riley said in a USC press release. “His impressive body of work and reputation as a highlevel coach and recruiter speak for themselves.”
Williams earned enough trust on staff to be named the interim head coach amid a catastrophic 2021 season after Clay Helton's firing, and has been key in drawing top local talent in the Trojans' secondary — drawing commitments from Loyola High's Ceyair Wright in the 2021 class, Mater Dei High's Domani Jackson in 2022 and St. John Bosco High's Marcelles Williams in 2024, among plenty of others.
USC has largely struggled, however, to develop cornerbacks Williams has recruited, as Wright and Jackson's improvement has stalled and the Trojans have been burned by big plays in the secondary for years.
Just days after Riley fired friend and defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, change was clearly needed by USC's Nov. 11 matchup with Oregon, when defensive backs were seen throwing their hands up in frustration and engaging in conversations after multiple breakdowns in the secondary. And USC and Williams parted ways in what appears as a sort of in-one-door, out-theother fashion with Belk christened, a coach who comes from the Nick Saban tree at Alabama and climbed the ladder from a safeties job to a coordinator role at Houston.
Despite Williams' absence in the local recruiting world, Belk's success at Houston and schematics are likely to attract a wide set of interest in USC's program just the same. In fact, St. John Bosco coach Jason Negro — who told the Southern California News Group in late October that USC hadn't been on Bosco's campus once in the fall to recruit — said the schematics under Lynn and Belk fit Bosco's system well and “could bode well for recruitment for our guys.”
Belk was named a Broyles
Award semifinalist in 2021, orchestrating a turnaround as coordinator in dropping Houston's average points-per-game surrendered by nearly 12. The Cougars' defense has largely struggled for the past two seasons, however, and despite Belk's background coaching defensive backs, has thrived on the line but struggled in the secondary; finishing 116th in the FBS in passing yards allowed per game in 2023.
Regardless, Belk's hire ensures Riley has hired three staffers with a history of collegiate-coordinator success in less than a month, a clear commitment towards an expressed goal of playing elite defense at USC after two disappointing units.
Entz's hire, in particular, was an eye-popping move, Riley and the Trojans drawing away a head coach in the middle of the FCS playoffs. A source with knowledge of the situation told the Southern California News Group that Entz's hire meant USC's current inside linebackers coach and associate head coach for defense, Brian Odom, was expected to be out at USC.
“I wouldn't leave NDSU for just anything, and I've had other opportunities along the way ... this was a unique opportunity for me and my wife,” Entz said in a press conference this week.
The timing of such changes — amid a transfer-portal storm and a pair of defensive recruits, Georgia's Lorenzo Cowan and Minnesota's Jide Abasiri, flipping their commitments to USC — are giving the Trojans real defensive momentum heading into a formative offseason, just a few months away from a transition to the Big Ten.
“We're going to compete for championships on both sides of the ball … I think this hire really shows that,” USC's general manager Dave Emerick said of Lynn's hire. “Moving forward with the recruits and the coaching staff we're able to put together, I think you'll see we're headed in that right direction.”