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With four minutes to go in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, USC football held a 45-30 lead over Tulane. The game looked to be in the bag. A fourth touchdown of the game for Tyjae Spears cut the Trojan lead to 8, but again, with a little over three minutes and a Heisman winner at quarterback, the game looked to be in the bag.
USC gave up a safety to cut the lead to six. Still, Tulane might have the ball, all the momentum in the world, and plenty of time while only needing a touchdown and an extra point, but the game is in the bag right? It wasn't. Tulane found their touchdown, and they found a glory that will be talked about in the Big Easy for generations to come.
But that's not what we're here to talk about. The Cotton Bowl collapse is the perfect encapsulation of an issue that's been bubbling all season for USC football. An issue that has cost them each of the three games they lost in 2022. Of course, I'm talking about the defense.
Defense
It's not even just in the three games they lost either. Let's not forget the Trojans gave up 45 points to UCLA, 35 to Cal, 37 to Arizona, and 28 to Stanford. That's just not going to cut it if USC wants the kinds of results their ambitions imply.
A lot of Trojan faithful place the blame squarely on Alex Grinch, the defensive coordinator. While, sure, the buck stops with the coaching staff, let's not act like this is the most talented defense in their division, let alone the country. It has talented players, but not enough of them, and really just not enough players talented enough to warrant getting on the field.
USC football is going to have to hit the transfer portal hard this winter, as only seven of their 19 high school signees so far are defensive players, and their lone un-signed commit is a receiver. Of their seven portal commits so far, four of them are defensive players, so that's a step in the right direction, but it's so early in the portal process it's impossible to tell how their total class will shake out.
But needless to say, USC needs a whole lot of help on defense, and they need it quickly. Sure, replacing Grinch is likely on the table as well, but realistically who do you replace him with? Bad defense is not a bug with Lincoln Riley's teams at this point, it's a feature. You have to know as a defensive coach coming into the program that you're not going to receive nearly the same resources and help that the offensive coaches get.
That's a turn-off for a lot of coaches as if they're going to a program with national championship ambitions, they want to be given national championship level resources on both sides of the ball, and in his head coaching history, it doesn't appear that Riley is willing to do that for his defenses. He seems to feel comfortable trying to outscore everyone instead of trying to just plain beat everyone.
Whatever is done with the USC defense, it needs to be done quickly. The college football world has never moved faster than at this moment in time and it's not slowing down for anyone, least of all USC.
