Will the USC defense play a hugely important role in guiding the Trojans to a successful 2024 college football season? Of course it will. Can USC make the College Football Playoff if the defense doesn’t significantly improve from 2023? No way. No chance. Yet, weirdly but genuinely, if there is one position group which ultimately holds the key to the Trojans’ success in 2024, it’s not any position group on defense. It sounds crazy, even unhinged, on many levels … but it’s true. It’s all part of the complicated conversation surrounding USC football with the LSU season opener now one month away on Sept. 1 in Las Vegas.
The biggest key for USC football? It’s not the defense … but that means we have to explain why before revealing the answer below:
DEFENSIVE RATING
When USC had a high-octane offense under Caleb Williams, the defense was horrible. The larger reality of having a Lincoln Riley offense is that the defense doesn’t have to be spectacular, just decent. A top-40-ranked defense should give USC a solid season at the very least, maybe even a great one. The defense does not have to stand on its head.
SECONDARY SHOULD BE FINE
When you realize that a bad coach, Donte Williams, is out, and that a good coach, Doug Belk, is in, the USC secondary should be a lot better this year, just as a natural product of coaching changes. If you hated the USC secondary last year, that unit should already be set on a different and much better course. It will be really hard for the secondary to not make big improvements. It really isn’t that much of a cause for concern.
Taylor Mays staying on staff at USC was huge. He coached the secondary on an interim basis in the Holiday Bowl and did a great job. Now, because college staffs are not limited in terms of personnel who can coach on the field at practice or during games, Mays can be an on-sideline, in-stadium coach for this staff. That should add a lot of value to what USC does. It’s another reason to think that defensive improvements won’t be that much of a point of uncertainty.
DAWGWORK
Eric Henderson will also add a lot of value and quality to USC’s defense. Come on! This guy was Aaron Donald‘s position coach! How can he not make USC’s defensive line a lot better? Defensive improvement isn’t really a question at USC this season. It will happen to some degree. The real question: How much will USC improve? The improvement has to be more than slight or marginal. With this defensive staff, it’s reasonable to think the jump will be a large one. Defense is important, but the idea that the defense is a total question mark is not necessarily true.
DEPTH
If you did want to insist that the biggest key to USC’s 2024 season exists on defense — which would be fair — it is this: defensive depth. The Trojans are not deep enough to withstand a large number of injuries, particularly on their defensive line. However, until the Trojans arrive at that crisis point, the bigger key lies elsewhere. If USC’s defensive starters are not crushed by injuries in 2024, the starters at the various positions are good enough — helped by improved coaching — to deliver good results. If you want to look at the biggest key going into the season, and not as a result of in-season developments or plot twists on the injury front (events which haven’t happened yet), it’s on the other side of the ball:
OFFENSIVE LINE
Jonah Monheim is a dude, but what about the rest of USC’s offensive line under head coach Josh Henson? The 2023 USC defense was awful, but lost in the furor surrounding Alex Grinch was the reality that the offensive line took several steps backward from 2022. No Andrew Vorhees, no Brett Neilon, and no Bobby Haskins created big holes the 2023 line could not fill. If this position group, with a number of fresh faces, can match or exceed the standard laid down by the 2022 USC offensive line, the Trojans can win 10, maybe even 11, games in 2024. If the offensive line fails and Henson strikes out, the season could spiral into another 7-5 disaster. This really is the hinge-point unit for the Trojans, barring a massive rash of injuries on the defensive line which leave USC overexposed.
Two things about Miller Moss: 1) If the offensive line gives him time to throw, he should have a great season and become everything USC hopes he will be. Everything should come together if the line protects its quarterback.
2) Moss has the benefit of direct helmet communication with Lincoln Riley this year, part of a policy change in college football. Moss will get help in reading the field and studying defenses with Riley in his ear all the time. This magnifies the centrality of the line giving Moss the time needed to make the proper throw and the proper read. If that happens, all the pieces come together for USC. It’s all about the O-line in 2024.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: If you think defense is the big key for USC football in 2024, you’re wrong
