Lincoln Rileys latest defensive reboot at USC

How can you may have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat? How are you able to compete for championships if you don’t have a championship protection?

Sorry of us, but guidelines are guidelines.

USC just retains making an attempt to bend them. Trying to break them. As if common legal guidelines don’t apply to the Trojans.

In each of Lincoln Riley’s 4 seasons at the helm right here, he’s trotted out spectacular offenses and unimpressive defenses and — shock, shock — gotten the same consequence each time: one thing short of the College Football Playoff.

Riley’s groups have averaged more yards per play in his tenure than any other group in the nation.

But it hasn’t mattered a lot, because the best that a USC group has ranked defensively in that span was last 12 months, when the Trojans gave up 23 factors per sport — 51st in the nation. That left them 9-4 after dropping to Texas Christian in the Alamo Bowl.

Now we’ll discover out whether or not in Season 5, Riley’s Trojans have a protection on par with the offense.

Whether this season, with Gary Patterson serving as USC’s third defensive coordinator in Riley’s tenure, might be different.

They said so main up to Saturday’s season-opening 42-26 victory over San José State, but the sport definitely didn’t promote anybody on it.

No, USC’s win over a Spartans group that’s incorporating 48 new gamers isn’t going to definitively inform us something.

But with Patterson on the USC sideline for the first time, gesticulating and sweating in the coaches’ all-black apparel, it did drop some regarding clues.

In 90-plus-degree heat, that ’match was questionable. So too was his protection, at instances.

In other moments, causes for optimism: The Trojans pitched a first-half shutout. There was the play in which freshman defensive end Luke Wafle ran through two Spartans blockers like a scorching knife through butter. Linebackers coach Mike Ekeler’s guys hit and hit onerous.

Junior defensive sort out Jide Abasiri had 4 tackles, two for loss — including one that’s the type of play Riley has been dreaming of seeing from his protection: On fourth and one at USC’s seven-yard line, Abasiri zipped past a pair of blockers and swallowed up operating back Jabari Smith.

“The fourth-down stop in the red zone, that’s something that we have spent a lot of time talking about,” Riley said. “Red-zone defense and how that equates. If you look at the top teams in the country over the last several years, typically the top red-zone defenses equal out with that; like, it’s the same teams.”

But the Trojans in any other case didn’t carry out like one of those “top teams.”

They took their proverbial foot off the fuel, ran out of fuel, sputtered to the end line, received outscored 23-7 in the fourth quarter and seemed like something but a group with severe playoff plans.

They seemed skinny. And, largely, like a typical Riley-era Trojans group.

The second-string secondary triggered second ideas. Trojan safeties have been crushed a number of instances, including on a 28-yard cross from Spartans quarterback Luke Weaver to Jerry McClure over freshman Madden Riordan, which made it 35-9 with 14:56 to play in the fourth quarter.

San José State quarterback Luke Weaver passes during the first quarter against USC on Saturday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

And perhaps it was the focus-sapping heat, but USC’s protection wasn’t as stifling, not as suffocating it ought to have been against an opponent as hopelessly overmatched as San José State.

The Spartans completed with 336 whole yards. Weaver seemed more and more comfy, with more time to operate than he ought to’ve had against a protection that’s going to be needed to keep top groups like Oregon, Washington, Ohio State and Indiana in test.

The Spartans’ new starter went 21 for 32 for 234 yards — including 74 yards in the fourth quarter.

“It took a little bit to settle in, but I’m really proud of just the resolve of our team,” Weaver said.

The Spartans ought to be proud, and the Trojans ought to be ashamed.

“The fourth quarter was not up to our standards,” Riley said. “Obviously, we played a bunch of different guys, a lot of guys got opportunities and we had several that did not play the way that we anticipated. There’ll be a lot to learn and grow from it because we’re going to need the depth.

“We challenged that in the fourth quarter and obviously didn’t respond the way we wanted.”

It leaves instructing moments aplenty for Patterson, who took three years off after his two-decade Texas Christian tenure ended in 2021.

The Hall of Fame coach is taking over for D’Anton Lynn, who bolted for his alma mater Penn State after two meh seasons. Lynn changed Alex Grinch, who was fired before ending his second season main a protection that was porous and poor, rating as the 94th and 121st most beneficiant protection in the nation in 2022 and ’23, respectively.

Patterson introduced his 4-2-5 defensive scheme. And his vitality and expertise, as effectively as his observe document — 5 instances his Horned Frogs had the nation’s No. 10-ranked protection.

Now if USC has any hope of making the playoff under Riley, it wants its protection to at least be among the best in the nation.

It wants to reply the query: How can a group anticipate to be complimented if it may possibly’t play complementary soccer?

It can’t.