D’Anton Lynn shares vision for USC defense moving forward

Lincoln Riley hired a cross town rival in UCLA defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn in his quest to fix the ailing USC defense. And speaking with reporters shortly after getting hired, Lynn shared some of his perspective on how to form a winning unit on that side of the ball.

The long and short of Lynn’s vision: The players he has will dictate his scheme more than the other way around. He isn’t bringing in a set scheme to install — though he certainly has his way of playing — and instead will assess how to approach things after he’s got a clearer idea of his personnel.

“From a schematic standpoint, my thing is that it’s all about the players. Everything’s about the players. You want to put them in the best position to play fast, in the best position to make plays, and I think that that looks a little bit different every year depending on how your team looks,” Lynn said. “So, just really excited to get this next recruiting class in just to see what this team’s going to look like this spring, then try to see, ‘OK, with this USC team, 2024, what is the best way to put this team in the best position?'”

And given he’s only just gotten hired at USC, Lynn isn’t quite sure what that will look like for USC in 2024. He’s still got to learn the roster — which will change amid the transfer portal — then assess the talent throughout the spring to get a fuller picture of how he wants to build the 2024 USC defense.

“Again, I don’t know enough, quite yet, about USC’s defense. I’ve watched two games. I’ve watched some practice. I’m looking forward to watching the entire year but as far as our defense, I’m not a guy who has like a, ‘Hey, this is my scheme. This is what I do.’ Again, it’s all about the players. I think you have to be flexible, you have to be able to adapt and you need a scheme that has been built that way. And with the rest of the coaching staff and myself, this past year, we were able to do that. We had a very flexible scheme that not only fit our personnel, but allowed us to be a little bit different each week, depending on the offense that we were playing,” Lynn said.

“And we’re not going to build that exact same thing here at ‘SC, because there are different pieces, different players, different staff, but we want to still try and do that same thing in our own way this year.”