Matt Entz discusses move to USC, taking over as Trojans' assistant head coach for defense

North Dakota State head coach Matt Entz is right in the middle of a playoff run with the Bison, but he made news on Sunday when he accepted an assistant position with USC under head coach Lincoln Riley. Entz, who has served as the North Dakota State head coach for the past five years, is the new assistant head coach for defense and linebacker coach for the Trojans.

Entz spoke about the decision during a press conference on Monday. He called it a “difficult decision” to make the move.

“Been here for 10 years,” Entz said. “This place has been unbelievable to Team Entz. The number of friends and colleagues that I have — really good friends that I have — here in Fargo, within our administration, within our coaching staff, in the community, is second to none. So, this will always be a home away from home.”

Entz said the opportunity to coach at USC was one he couldn’t pass up.

“Just an opportunity for me to continue to grow and develop,” Entz said. “I wouldn’t leave NDSU for just anything. I’ve had other opportunities along the way and they just didn’t maybe spark my interest, or the timing wasn’t right. This was a unique opportunity for me and my wife.”

Entz said there wasn’t much of a connection between he and USC prior to this hiring. But there are some connections via new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn. One of the mentors Lynn spoke about shortly after accepting the USC job was defensive coordinator Gus Bradley. Lynn was a defensive assistant with the Chargers in 2017 while Bradley was the defensive coordinator. Bradley now serves as the defensive coordinator for the Colts, but was the North Dakota State defensive coordinator from 1996–2005. Lynn also coached Kyle Emanuel with the Chargers. Emanuel played for Entz during the 2014 season at NDSU.

Entz said this was a result of Riley “reaching out trying to identify who would be a good fit and my name popped up a couple of times.”

But Entz also checked in with some mutual friends of himself and Riley.

“They speak very highly of him,” Entz said. “He’s a West Texas native. Kind of blue-collar. That was one of the things I wanted to associate myself with, people that are like-minded like myself.”

USC is going to spend a lot more time than the Trojans are accustomed to in the Midwest going forward as part of the Big Ten conference. Entz hasn’t recruited or coached at the FBS level, but he’s familiar with that part of the country and will now have experience making that move to Los Angeles.

“I anticipate there’s probably some correlation there with them wanting to have — the footprint is the Midwest now,” Entz said. “What does that look like moving forward and recruiting? What does it look like moving forward with just how the conferences have realigned to this date? So I’m sure that that helps, having a footprint. My footprint is in the Midwest, and having recruited the majority, really the bigger scope of it, hopefully that’ll be an asset to them.”

USC was clearly alluring to Entz. He said the draw was too much to ignore when the offer came.

“To me, it’s a top-five program in the country,” Entz said of USC. “And you know, when USC is playing good football, college football is a better sport.”

It’s an interesting path, going from a head coaching position to an assistant position that isn’t a coordinator. Entz was asked about that perceived step down in title while taking a step up in NCAA level.

“Betting on myself a little bit,” Entz said. “I have head coaching experience and that’s not something that anyone can take away from me at this time. But, to be transparent, I’ve had some people telling me, ‘Well, you don’t have FBS recruiting experience. You haven’t really dove into NIL.’ And so those have been kind of marks against me, if you will. And so I saw this as an opportunity — One, continue to further and broaden my circle of people. Still gonna have some relevance here in the Midwest, which was comforting, because our footprint is the Big 10 now. And hopefully, this will lead to some other opportunities down there. Would I like to be a head coach again? Of course I would.”