Lincoln Riley gives clear answer when pressed about Alex Grinch, defensive struggles

USC coach Lincoln Riley didn’t have much to say on the status of defensive coordinator Alex Grinch for next season following a heartbreaking 46-45 loss to Tulane on the Cotton Bowl on Monday.

The Trojans defense surrendered 539 yards of offense to the Green Wave in the loss, including a pair of touchdowns over the final five minutes. USC lost the game despite holding a 15-point advantage with 4:30 to go, leading to immense disappointment postgame.

But in spite of the result, Riley wasn’t willing to comment on Grinch’s future.

“We just got done playing the game 15 minutes ago, so I’m not gonna make any big-picture assessments,” the coach said. “We didn’t play good enough today. We gave up the big plays obviously and the lack of just not tackling to the level that we would expect are very, very alarming and something that we’ve got to do a better job of. To play great on offense, defense or special teams — to have any success — everything has got to be clicking. Every single part of your program. We’ll take a deep dive into every part of it here over the next couple of weeks.”

Alex Grinch has been with Lincoln Riley the past four seasons, including three years at Oklahoma prior to following Riley to Los Angeles this offseason. USC finished eighth in both scoring defense (29.2 points allowed per game) and total defense in Grinch’s first year with the program.

Riley went on to say the Trojans will evaluate every aspect of their program in the coming weeks, including each assistant’s performance from this season. With that being the case, it appears Grinch isn’t out of the woods just yet.

“We’ll lay out a plan just like we did when we landed in LA 13 months ago,” Riley said. “You take a deep dive of it, assess what you got and how we can make it better and then you go work. Now we just repeat the process knowing a little more about this roster and a little bit more about where we’re at and what we have coming back and what we’re gonna add. We made a pretty big jump in Year 1 and I wouldn’t bet against us to make another jump next year.”