Bear Alexander chooses USC, gives Trojans huge lift in transfer portal

The Bear is here. #USC, Lincoln Riley, and Alex Grinch hit the grand slam they absolutely needed in the portal.

Bear Down? That’s for the Arizona Wildcats. Bear market? That’s for Cal, where the Golden Bears are in decline and have lost a lot of stock value. The USC Trojans are simply going to be a bear for the next few years. They’re going to be hard to beat now that they have landed the top-ranked prospect in the 2023 spring window of the college football transfer portal.

Bear Alexander, the Georgia defensive lineman who played in the national championship game in Los Angeles this past January, chose USC on Sunday evening. Alexander was expected to be a core part of Kirby Smart’s defense this year with Georgia. He was going to be a main component of the Bulldogs’ push for a third consecutive national championship.

This is not a situation in which a national title-caliber program discarded a player because it already had sufficient quality and depth. This was a case of Alexander ostensibly being part of an elite program’s plans, but wanting a change of scenery and maybe different kind of challenge.

The boost this gives USC on paper is substantial. As long as it translates to the field this fall, the Trojans should be noticeably better on defense in 2023, which is exactly what they and Alex Grinch need to contend for the College Football Playoff this year.

We’ll have much more on this story at Trojans Wire.

[mm-video type=video id=01gyq1camxhjbb9txb0b playlist_id=none player_id=01f5k5y2jb3twsvdg4 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gyq1camxhjbb9txb0b/01gyq1camxhjbb9txb0b-7eec387592dba7052190edbf4a3c5944.jpg]

[lawrence-auto-related count=1 tag=696090909]