Rece Davis, Pete Thamel evaluate USC’s decision to fire Alex Grinch

USC bit the bullet when it came to their dreadful defense by parting ways with Alex Grinch this week. Like many, Rece Davis and Pete Thamel both knew that, in the end, the Trojans simply had no other choice.

Davis and Thamel spoke about Grinch’s firing during the ‘College GameDay Podcast’ this week. Davis started by noting one moment, albeit a snapshot off the field, that told him everything he needed to know about the defense at USC and their regard for Grinch as their leader.

“The most justifiable reason to fire him came on a clip that is circulating on social media. Sometimes, that can tell an incomplete story – I want to offer that caveat. But he is giving instruction to the defense at some point in the game and then raises his hand in the middle as if to get everyone – ‘On three!’, “Win!’, whatever they say. And everybody left him hanging – everybody!” recalled Davis. “It could have been that they were fatigued, it could have been that they were demoralized, it could have been that it wasn’t intended to be a slight. But you saw that and you were like, ‘He doesn’t have them.'”

“For whatever reason, that voice wasn’t commanding enough to bring them in, to unify them, and bring them together. Whether that is truly indicative of the feelings? There’s no way to tell from a short social media clip. But it does show that everybody wasn’t marching to the same drum. Everybody wasn’t unified, everybody wasn’t responding to that voice,” Davis explained. “When that happens, regardless of a coach’s acumen, regardless of how much you want to be loyal to him? You have to make a change.”

Thamel agreed that, if for no other reason, USC had to make this sacrifice. They couldn’t tolerate the flaws for any longer and, to him, had to make this decision in order to get their defense’s attention for the final games of the season.

“If you make a coordinator change at this point of the year? You are not going to change radically schematically, alright? You are not going to have someone come in, install some great scheme, and transform your program,” Thamel explained. “What you have to weigh is losing this guy on their staff, who is usually the most experienced, the play caller, which is just a system thing that has to get ironed out – will that body being gone cause your group to be galvanized and energized?”

“At this point, firing Alex Grinch, at this moment of the season, is a motivation tactic to try to just get the team to play hard,” said Thamel. “If you are going to make that move at this point? You are doing it either to pacify your fanbase, which wanted him gone after last year. Or, B., to try to just energize your team to play harder.”

Something had to give when it came to the nation’s 124th ranked defense out in Los Angeles. Now, with two regular season games and a bowl matchup to go, all USC can hope for is that, as Davis and Thamel both pointed out, this decision will stir the unit in a way that leads to better results or effort to end the year.