RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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CHICAGO -- Lincoln Riley has spent five years at USC doing the hard parts. He rebuilt the roster from scratch. He locked down California recruiting and landed the nation's No. 1 signing class. He brought in a general manager, overhauled the staff a time or two and moved into a $200 million facility. He found Jayden Maiava , a redshirt senior who led the Big Ten in passing yards a year ago, then passed on the NFL Draft to come back for one more run.
He has done just about everything a coach can do to position the Trojans for the College Football Playoff.
Everything except fix the defense, but that's why he lured Hall of Fame coach Gary Patterson out of retirement.
"It's tougher to move the ball in practice," Riley said Tuesday at Big Ten media days, smiling. "Coach Patterson is one of one."
All the pieces are in place for a breakthrough season in the Big Ten. Fifteen starters, the most in the country, return from last season's 9-4 team, including nine on an offense that ranked eighth nationally last season. Patterson is tasked with flipping a defense that has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows since Riley's arrival in 2022, ranking 51st last season while allowing 23 points per game.
As Riley has led one of the nation's top offenses, the defense has mostly been a burden. Since Riley's arrival, USC leads the nation in offensive yards per play. On defense, the Trojans rank 117th. It is one of the harshest dichotomies in the sport.
"I'm proud of the progress that we've made on that side of the ball, but my expectations are for us to be just as good defensively as we are offensively and on special teams," Riley said. "I wanna see it across the board. … I'm bullish on how good that group can be."
Riley spent two years convincing Patterson to join him at USC. The two were coaching rivals in the Big 12, where Riley led Oklahoma to a 55-10 record and Patterson guided TCU to five No. 1 finishes on defense. He finally got him in January, thanks in part to a conversation over a round of golf at Pebble Beach. No one will argue Patterson is one of the top defensive minds in the modern era, but he also hasn't coached a game since leaving TCU after the 2021 season.
"I've never coached against somebody that I thought was more unique and tougher to go against than Gary Patterson," Riley said. "Him doing it with different skill sets -- a lot of time the OU versus TCU years that we competed against one another, we had a lot better players than he had top to bottom. They had good players; I don't want to disrespect anybody there, but the talent level was different. He just consistently year after year adapts and coaches and develops in such a unique way."
USC didn't require a stellar defense to win big early in Riley's tenure. They started 11-1 despite ranking near the bottom of the country in most defensive categories. They seemingly got worse as the season progressed, giving up 47 in a loss to Utah in the Pac-12 Championship and 46 to Tulane in the Cotton Bowl.
The trend worsened the next season, cratering to a 116th-place finish in total defense while allowing 34.4 points, more than five points worse than the year before. Alex Grinch was fired as coordinator, and Riley looked across town to hire rising star D'Anton Lynn away from UCLA . The defense improved, but it never hit high marks in the first two seasons of the Big Ten to catch up to the likes of Ohio State , Oregon and Penn State .
Then Lynn left for his alma mater, Penn State, to start anew.
Riley said Tuesday that USC's defensive issues have taken years to overcome.
"What we inherited here, the offensive talent was much different than the defensive talent," he said. "There were some pretty big deficiencies there talent-wise, honestly, in the beginning. We've certainly gotten better here over these last few years and built."
The complicating factor has always been that opponents know what they're getting into on offense against USC, he said.
"People know when they play us offensively that history would say you're gonna have to score a little bit," Riley said. "And sometimes we see a little bit different types of aggression -- aggressiveness in terms of fourth downs. And so we know what that is. And that doesn't change our opportunity to stop them."
Enter Patterson to correct course as USC tries to contend for its first Big Ten title, which carries a prerequisite over the last five years of the league: a top-20 defense. Patterson brings his 4-2-5 scheme -- the defense he spent two decades perfecting at TCU. It's built around speed, an extra defensive back and a simplified assignment structure designed to let players run to the ball without overthinking.
The first thing USC's defenders noticed was how clean the communication became after "stepping on their toes" last season.
"I just feel like coach Patterson gives more broader terms and our jobs are a little more simplified in this defense," Jide Abasiri , the veteran defensive lineman, said Tuesday. "It's more configured toward college players. He knows how college players learn. He's been in the game for a long time."
Alex VanSumeren , the Michigan State transfer who arrived in January, simplified the change: "He's gone 45 years without getting fired, so when he talks, you listen to what he has to say. He has a ton of energy, and it makes you want to go harder for a guy that truly cares about his players."
Patterson was not at Big Ten media days on Tuesday, but his presence was the dominant subject anyway. Riley talked about the head coaching experience Patterson brings to the building and his ability to understand what Riley is managing in ways a career coordinator never could.
"You can't replace that type of expertise and experience that he brings to the table. He's incredibly motivated. He wouldn't have done this without it. I think he senses the opportunity. Even for a guy that's accomplished just about everything you can in this game, there are a few other things le...
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