Lincoln Riley has taken a more active role in USC’s defense, but will it stick?

LOS ANGELES — The narrative has followed Lincoln Riley for five years, from Norman to Southern California, because his defense of his defense five years ago was much the same as it was after a loss to Oregon on Saturday night.

Consider Riley’s statements in November of 2018, as reported by Oklahoma’s Fansided site, when the Sooners were coming off a narrow 48-47 victory over Oklahoma State nearly doomed by defensive issues: “We’ve got to play better, but those of us in those walls, we see the makings of what we want to be. And we’re not that far off.”

Consider Riley’s statements in November of 2023, when this USC squad was coming off a 36-27 loss to Oregon in which the Trojans were once again doomed by explosive plays on defense: “Kinda been the theme of the last several weeks, is, we’re not that far off. I mean, we’re not. And we got work to do.”

Riley is known, unequivocally, as an offensive guru. His commitment to fielding an elite defense, though, has been questioned throughout a largely successful career as a head coach – with years of shaky results and a clear focus on offensive responsibilities as a head coach.

“I’ve probably spent a little bit more time there than I did this time last year, just some of the continuity on offense and some of the offensive staff and all that,” Riley said in early November of overseeing USC’s defense this year. “I certainly spend more of my time to be ready to call the offense, so of course spend most of my time there.”

Now, this hasn’t come out of nowhere, as defensive lineman Jamil Muhammad made clear. But in the week and a half since Riley fired defensive coordinator Alex Grinch after two years of disappointing defensive results, since staffers Shaun Nua and Brian Odom have stepped up to share co-coordinator responsibilities, Riley said he’s spent more time with his defense.

“He’s been around a lot more,” Muhammad said Tuesday.

Six years after his first year as a head coach, at Oklahoma, only one Riley-led team – the 2019 Sooners – has finished better than 60th in the FBS in points allowed per game. This USC unit, after Riley said in the spring that “what was acceptable 12 months ago is not necessarily acceptable now,” has been the worst in his tenure. And Riley was adamant, in availability last week after the Grinch decision, that he and the rest of staff weren’t laying complete blame for USC’s defensive issues on Grinch, telling reporters “I have a role in that.”

And even if simply a symptom of a midseason coaching change, his increased presence on defensive concepts has been beneficial, as Nua and Muhammad both expressed at practice on Tuesday. On Monday, Muhammad said, Riley was overseeing a defensive walkthrough of the Nua-and-Odom-led tweaks to Grinch’s established scheme.

“It’s been good having him around, having an extra set of eyes and obviously a set of wisdom when it comes to just the game as a whole, even if he isn’t a defensive coach, but he is a savant of the game,” Muhammad said.

The question, then – will Riley consider working more hands-on with his USC defenses in the future, as part of his vision for the program?

“Yeah, I think going forward,” Riley said, “there’s a lot of questions to be answered there … we’ll make the changes that we’re going to make, we’ll get this group together and we’ll decide what the best course of action is in terms of a person that we bring in, how that changes roles on the current staff, roles on the future staff.”

It seems, then, that the onus to rebuild USC’s defense will fall largely on his next coordinator’s shoulders. But this finish on USC’s season is an interesting thought experiment of sorts, a judgment both on the absence of Grinch and if Riley’s further-extended presence with his defense during practices yields results. A tiny pinprick did emerge from the loss to Oregon, a game that was fraught with secondary implosions: USC held the Ducks to 140 rushing yards on 31 carries, far below their season averages in rushing yards per game (202.3) and yards per carry (6.2).

“Everything,” Riley said, “should be a little cleaner this week.”