Two years ago, your USC Trojans were in the middle of their worst season since 1991, and subsequently and fired head coach Clay Helton. A few months later, former athletic director Mike Bohn made the shocking decision that USC had convinced Lincoln Riley to leave Oklahoma and take the head coaching job.
In both seasons, Riley's defense has been among the worst in college football. This year, they have allowed 34.5 points per game, the second-worst of any Power 5 program. Last season, they were in the bottom 40 of the NCAA in points and total yards allowed.
Riley is fresh off of dismissing defensive coordinator Alex Grinch, a decision he said "sucked" to make. Grinch came with Riley to USC and the two consider each other friends.
In an epic Twitter/X rant, former USC quarterback Matt Leinart noted that the issues with the USC defense extend beyond Grinch.
"Everybody's going to say he's awful, he's terrible, he's this or that. Trust me I have my frustrations too — I don't think this all falls on Coach Grinch," Leinart said. "There are more problems than just Coach Grinch even though everybody wants to point the finger at him."
One of the defense's primary flaws was their struggles at making open-field tackles. They have allowed over 480 yards per game over their last six matchups, three of which they lost.
Leinart, now a college football commentator for Fox Sports 1, placed the blame of the missed tackles issue on the players, opining that coaching was not the problem.
"Everybody needs to hold themselves accountable. Look yourself in the mirror. Because there's a lot of missed tackles out there. There's a lot of things that don't fall on the coach, it falls on the player who's playing the game," Leinart said.
(Via @MattLeinartQB)
Leinart recalled the situation Riley was inserted into. After the 4-8 season, the introduction of 20 transfers that joined Riley changed the makeup of the USC roster.
Leinart said the rebuild process isn't a one or two-year process.
"It takes a while to rebuild the program. Coach Riley inherited a disaster. A disaster. So this is year two. Are we a three-loss team? We're a three-loss team. We might lose to Oregon, we might lose to UCLA and that's okay. USC has to get better. There have to be more changes, probably, ahead in the way this team is built. But everyone needs to be patient and understand that this takes time. We need better personnel, let's face it."
(Via @MattLeinartQB)
Next up, the reeling Trojans will take on Oregon in Autzen Stadium. Most sports books have listed Oregon as a 5.5-point favorite.
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