Lincoln Riley confirms USC DC Alex Grinch will return in 2023

Lincoln Riley confirmed USC defensive coordinator Alex Grinch to return for next season, when asked if he anticipated any staff changes.

Amid speculation and criticism about Grinch’s future and defense’s performances in 2022, Riley said his assistant coach would come back to the Trojans, when speaking during exit interviews Tuesday. USC lost a double digit lead in the Cotton Bowl in a loss to Tulane, leading to outrage from USC fans about the team’s defense.

Grinch followed Riley to USC from Oklahoma prior to the 2022 season after spending three seasons as the defensive coordinator with the Sooners.

Grinch began his coaching career in 2002 at Missouri as a grad assistant and had numerous stops such as New Hampshire, Wyoming, Washington State (as the defensive coordinator) and Ohio State (as the defensive coordinator).

USC finished 11-3 in 2022.

However, expectations grew from winning the conference to winning a national championship in a short span under Riley. He discussed what USC needed to take that next step following the heartbreaking loss to Tulane.

“Well, it’s a long answer to that,” Riley said. “You know, you come in here day one, and you’re trying to, in a lot of ways, just starting to teach these guys how to compete and what championship habits look like. I mean, you’re starting from the complete ground floor on everything. We’ve learned a lot of things, we’ve grown in a lot of ways and that’s why we’re at this game and why we’re an 11-win team and we’re two plays different from being who knows where?”

But, the coach is confident in what’s next for the program.

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“But we know what we’re doing,” Riley said. “We know the areas that we have to get better. We know the things that we have to address. We’ll spend a lot of time on it and get some clarity, let this one kind of soak in and get past it. And we’ll go back to work.

“We didn’t come here for a one year deal, we knew that it wasn’t when we signed up to come to USC. So this one hurts but also it gives complete clarity on what we need to do next, and that’s go back to work and keep building and developing our program.”