Heather Dinich explains why Alex Grinch isn't to blame for USC's defensive issues

After two losses in the last three games (and darn near three), Notre Dame faces another huge marquee matchup as they welcome an undefeated USC squad to South Bend.

This time around, for their fourth week in a row engaged in a primetime game, the Fighting Irish simply have to have this win to remain in the national conversation whatsoever now that they’ve lost to Ohio State and Louisville. ESPN’s Heather Dinich believes they’ll get the win to USC thanks to the Trojans’ porous defense.

“No, I’m going with Notre Dame on this one,” she answered Mike Greenberg on Wednesday morning’s edition of Get Up when she and Paul Finebaum joined to break down the matchup. “I think Marcus Freeman is going to rally these guys together, and I think to Paul’s point, they’ll take advantage of that USC defense, which is missing tackles.”

However, during a week where the USC defense and its coordinator, Alex Grinch, has taken a ton of heat from the media, Dinich stepped up to defend the Trojan coach and offered some explanations for why his unit is once again struggling to stop pretty much anybody.

“But here’s the thing: I’ve talked to several coaches who have faced USC and have told me: ‘Alex Grinch is running a good scheme when executed properly.'”

So Dinich essentially says that she’s heard from other coaches that the blame isn’t on Grinch, but instead, on his players for failing to execute what is actually a “good” scheme. That, plus Caleb Williams and the Trojan offense is simply too good at what they do, leaving the defense little time for rest.

“And the other point coaches made is that USC’s offense scores so quickly, the defense is on the field A LOT, and some of those missed tackles could be attributed to fatigue,” added Dinich. After those explanations, though, she did admit the USC defense is struggling with some communication issues.

“But they’re also trying to figure out where those run fits are coming from, and there’s getting to be some confusion in the secondary and with the linebackers, so sometimes they are caught out of place.”

At the end of the day, USC needs the win just as bad as Notre Dame, says Dinich, since the Trojans face an extremely tough string of Pac-12 opponents during the back half of the year and can’t afford to drop and out-of-conference game like this one if they want to remain in the College Football Playoff discussion.

“If USC does not win this game, they’re going to be under tremendous pressure, and I don’t think the defense is good enough to handle the rest of the schedule, which is Washington, Oregon, etc.“