D’Anton Lynn believes the USC defense is ‘not far away’ from success

D’Anton Lynn is the first new defensive coordinator for Lincoln Riley after five years as he takes over at USC. Now, although it has been a unit that has been highly disappointing, he sees a group that he feels he can more than work with.

Lynn had some positive takeaways about the Trojan defense during his introductory press conference this week. To him, the film tells a different, better story than the results on the field have reflected.

“I mean the first thing that sticks out is that the team is not that far away,” said Lynn. “You see a lot of good things on tape.”

Lynn has things to do in order to prove that. This season’s defense was the worst of any of Riley’s seven teams. They finished at No. 125 in the nation by allowing 34.9 points per game. They also gave up 438.8 yards of offense, good for 12.5 yards per pass attempt and 4.8 yards per carry.

Even with a top-five offense in the country, it didn’t matter as the defense pulled them down to being a team that finished with a discouraging record of 7-5.

For reference, in his first collegiate job at UCLA, Lynn coached a defense that was No. 15 in the country. They allowed just 18.1 points a contest and one yard under 300 per game. That included a performance against USC where they gave up just 20 points to Caleb Williams and company.

When it comes to improvements, Lynn knows the need to cross out those explosive plays is at the top of the list. Still, as far as ways to do so, he says he has more film to watch before deciding on a way to go about that.

“As far as the explosive plays? That’s something I need to watch more tape and dive into, want to dive into their playbook,” said Lynn.

“That’s something that I did at UCLA when I first got there. I watched the tape,” Lynn explained. “I also wanted to know what they were doing, why, and what their scheme was. There might be some schematic stuff that they did that was good that we might keep. There might be some stuff that we change.”

Lynn has his work cut out for him to fix the mess that was left by Alex Grinch and the way the Trojans used to go out about their defense. From here, though, he is committed to learning as much as he can in order to make that unit what they want it to be in LA.

“To know all that? You kind of just need a little bit more information, which I’m trying to gather right now,” said Lynn.