LOS ANGELES — In the winter, as Lincoln Riley extended feelers across town in a stealth attempt to pry away the defensive wunderkind who had just bested him, he delivered D’Anton Lynn several assurances.
His mentality – as he detailed to reporters in December – was that they would do everything possible to accelerate the process of making USC a great defense. That included development. That included staffing. That included practicing. Everything at USC would be done, Riley told him and told the world, with a defensive focus first.
And everything would be done under Lynn’s vision, Riley made clear a few months later, after the UCLA-turned-USC hire became official.
“He’s the defensive coordinator,” Riley said of Lynn in February, asked about defensive line coach Eric Henderson’s co-coordinator status. “And he’s going to set the direction.”
A year later, USC’s head coach has largely delivered on his promise. And as the anniversary of UCLA’s 2023 blowout of USC rolls around, a game in which Riley got to see firsthand the defensive shift orchestrated in Westwood, Lynn has largely delivered right back – inarguably the steadiest and most encouraging piece of a 5-5 Trojans team that has endured near-constant frustration for the better part of two months.
“He’s done everything that we would’ve asked,” Riley said Tuesday, asked about how Lynn had fulfilled his hopes. “The culture defensively, within our program, has really shifted in a lot of ways.”
The man himself, of course, is one of few public words. The visor changes, the hoodie changes, with the weeks that pass on USC’s practice field. The polite stare, the complete lack of self-indulgence at any question presented by a reporter, never does. And Lynn, unassuming as ever, described his return to UCLA when asked Tuesday as simply “exciting” and “another big game for our guys.”
The impact, however, is much louder, as Riley pointed out.
It’s present on the surface of his former program: UCLA (4-6 overall, 3-5 Big Ten) has gone from 92nd in the country in opponent points per game in 2022 without Lynn to 14th with him in 2023 to 83rd without him again in 2024.
It’s present on the surface of his current program: USC (5-5, 3-5 Big Ten) has gone from 121st in the country in opponent ppg in 2023 to 43rd in the country in 2024, and ranks 25th in the country in percentage of opposing red zone conversions for touchdowns.
It’s present, deeper, in the moments time and again on this team’s slate where previous units would have folded. Just look this past Saturday, when USC’s offense handed the game to Nebraska on a platter in the third quarter with a fumble from quarterback Jayden Maiava – only for an immediate stop to force a red zone field goal that Riley spoke of with pride.
“Obviously, you can look at the statistics and you know, see a pretty massive difference there,” Riley said. “But I don’t think that tells the whole story. I think D’Anton’s been a really consistent leader, along with our defensive staff.”
Lynn, the man who walks in precise grids around the perimeter of opposing fields to lock in before a game, shrugged off any emotional component of reuniting with his former program on Saturday. He had grown up in the NFL, where coaching staffs were yearly carousels through cities around the country.
“It’s ball, at the end of the day,” Lynn said.
But his return to the Rose Bowl for rivalry week, ultimately, marks the anniversary of an inflection point in Los Angeles college football, his hire away from Westwood perhaps the greatest tangible success of Riley’s tenure in Southern California.
“Certainly, the progress is real by stats,” Riley said Tuesday. “But you can just feel the difference right now.”