USC Football: When Pressed About Defensive Prep, Lincoln Offers Least Insightful Response Possible

The USC Trojans ended their regular season last week with a disappointing loss to their rivals, the UCLA Bruins. It was the culmination of a very frustrating season altogether, and they now enter into the offseason with a ton of questions.

The biggest of which is how they will improve their defense for next season. It cost them multiple games this year again and was a real problem. Head coach Lincoln Riley spoke on the issue but didn’t sound very convincing about making improvements.

“I think it starts with we have to get the right coordinator in," Riley said. "We’ve got to surround him with the right staff. We’ve got to continue to build the talent base and we’ve got to really look at … what are we doing defensively to put our guys in the best position possible to go play well? That’s a schematic question. It’s a mentality question. It’s a fundamental question. It’s how we practice. It’s how we train them. I don’t think there’s any part of it where you’re like this is good enough.”

Per Antonio Morales of The Athletic

The defense has been a big issue for Riley-led teams over his career, and it has followed him to the Trojans. This type of response isn’t what fans want to hear after the season that the team just put together, and it’s more of the same from the USC head coach.

“No, you look at everything and there’s a pecking order and I think it starts with the coordinator, down to the staff, then to the scheme, then to how we train, the body types, the evaluations, the recruiting, the development, the practice," Riley added. "It’s going to be a very holistic thing. There’s not any part of it that we won’t look at and there’s not any part of it that if it needs to get better that we won’t change.”

Per Antonio Morales of The Athletic

USC needs to have some major changes on the defensive side of the ball moving forward, otherwise, it will be more of the same for them. Entering the Big-10 next season, the Trojans are going to be eaten alive if they can’t find a way to get stops in games against more physical teams.

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