What We Learned: USC's secondary is young, but is it good?

The Trojans know the six or seven players they'll lean on in the defensive backfield in Game 1. No one knows how they'll play together.

USC’s most experienced defensive back is Greg Johnson. He’s played in 14 games.

This is the youngest secondary Greg Burns, who’s only been coaching that group since 1997, has ever had.

“It is what it is,” Burns said. “They’re young. I’ve played young guys before.”

But they’re all young. Burns said he expects to lean on a rotation of 6-7 guys in Saturday’s opener against Fresno State, and it’s possible that all of them will be freshmen and sophomores.

Johnson will start at nickel, sophomore Talanoa Hufanga and redshirt sophomore Isaiah Pola Mao will start at safety, and Olaijah Griffin redshirt freshman Isaac Taylor-Stuart, after taking the bulk of the first-team reps in practice the past two days, are projected to start at cornerback.

Johnson might also see time at cornerback, while redshirt freshman Chase Williams figures to work in at nickel and safety, with freshman Chris Steele spelling the corners. Burns intimated Wednesday that every position will involve some rotating, although we’ll probably see less of it at safety, where redshirt junior C.J. Pollard is fourth in line.

“The biggest thing they have to realize is simplify what you’re doing,” Burns said. “My job is to do this on this call. When you start thinking outside of yourself and you go outside the scheme, that’s when you have a problem.

“The one thing that I’m going to be honing in on is if when the game starts, do they change their technique or are they trusting their training? Do you revert to something random or do you stick to your training?”

In that regard, Burns cited Griffin and Johnson as two of the better examples from preseason scrimmages. The former has been USC’s best corner in fall practice, while the latter won the starting job at nickel after moving there just a few weeks ago. Johnson strung together five good weeks in spring on the outside but is now needed inside and might have found a new home in the process.

“Good athleticism, man skills, good blitzer, a lot of good quick twitch things,” Burns said. “He has a little bit of savvy to him, especially when he blitzes. What a nickel should look like.”

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Defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast thinks he has a good idea of what the safety play will look like. Hufanga and Pola-Mao are widely regarded as two of the better players on the team, despite their inexperience. Fittingly, they’ve never actually played together. In fact, they really just started taking full-speed reps together in training camp. Even then, Hufanga made only a cameo in the scrimmages.

But Pendergast expects them to perform as advertised.

“Isaiah’s been in the system now for three years,” Pendergast said. “I’ve worked with the safeties the last two years. I know that he knows what he’s looking at. And I feel a lot more comfortable with Talanoa now that he’s played. I remember last year, we laughed the other day, we went over to the mock game at a junior college and his eyes were as big as saucers. I’m like, it’s Saturday before a game, we’re over here walking through these plays, relax a little bit.

“I think their bond, growing together and working together, is coming together. And it’ll only get better as the season goes on.”

Surprisingly, Pendergast, if he wasn’t being coy, seemed less confident in his pass rush. He said USC’s offensive line really challenged the defensive front and he won’t have a good pulse on how good the rush is until they play this weekend. He holds a very different opinion of the run defense, which has become a bigger issue in each of the past two seasons.

“I feel better going into this year playing the run than I did probably the last three years,” Pendergast said.

A big reason for that is how the team has performed over the past month, particularly in scrimmages. USC is employing a four-down front much more regularly but sometimes features just six or seven in the box. The results haven’t suffered when they do.

“Sometimes we’re really trying to play the run with a light box, because that way I think we can do some different things coverage-wise,” Pendergast said. “You really test yourself if you can stop the run in live situations.”

Pendergast added the defense looks to be better in two specific areas compared to a year ago at this time: open-field tackling, and situations. USC has emphasized practicing situations more, likely because it’s run more plays, and the defense has come out on top more than it hasn’t. The exception to that has been on early downs when the offense has more of the field to go (and thus work with).

That’s when the secondary has really looked … young.

FOOTNOTES

There weren't any notable changes with the first-team offense or defense from Tuesday. It's looking more and more like Jalen McKenzie will start at right guard and Drew Richmond at right tackle. Vavae Malepeai and Stephen Carr continue to split reps with the ones -- and sometimes they're on the field together -- while Markese Stepp is clearly the third back. 

I'm starting to think the tight ends won't be heavily featured in this offense.

Senior Dominic Davis, who entered the program as a tailback but spent all of 2019 working at cornerback, has switched back to offense for a third time. He's yet to take a snap on defense despite being there the past two years.

USC is planning to release its official depth chart Friday around noon on social media.