Tag: bear alexander

Oregon analyst says Bear Alexander is a good fit with USC in 2023

One @Ducks_Wire analyst is very high on Bear Alexander at USC.

Is Bear Alexander a better fit at USC than he ever would have been at Georgia? One Oregon football analyst seems to think so in his evaluation of top Pac-12 position players for the 2023 season:

(h/t Miles Dwyer of Ducks Wire)

“Some of the most notable transfers to the Pac-12 of this offseason were USC’s additions of several elite defensive linemen. The most prolific of those players is Bear Alexander, the former Georgia lineman. In the class of 2022, Alexander was one of the most sought-after linemen in the country. He ultimately chose Georgia, but after a year of low production, Alexander opted for a change of scenery.

“While much of Alexander’s game is unproven, all signs point to the idea that he is a much better fit with the Trojans than the Bulldogs, and after a year in FBS he will have gained enough experience to be an elite defensive lineman in the Pac-12.”

Catch all of Ducks Wire’s Pac-12 team previews for the upcoming season:

Arizona — Arizona State — California — Colorado — Oregon State  — Stanford — UCLA — USC — Utah — Washington — Washington State

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Bear Alexander: more than just a specialist at USC

Bear Alexander thinks he can have a more expansive role on #USC’s defense than he ever could have had at Georgia.

There is a place and a need for specialists in football. This doesn’t just apply to punters and placekickers, either. Specialists can be fourth receivers, tight ends, fullbacks, and dime defenders in the secondary. Several dozen players are on a roster, creating numerous avenues for individuals to make a unique contribution to a team. Specialists matter. Yet, football teams have to have “generalists” in addition to specialists. They need every-down players who can repeatedly make plays but do so in different ways.

Bear Alexander wants to be a generalist, not a specialist, as USC football analyst Josh Webb explains:

“Alexander feels his options at USC are greater than the ones he had at Georgia. It is not very often that a top-100 commit (No. 56) flips from a national champion,” Webb wrote.

“Alexander is 6-foot-3 and 305 pounds and is growing. With Georgia taking guys like him and turning them into highly-sought commodities in the NFL draft, it might seem counter-intuitive for Alexander to leave Kirby Smart for a coach like Lincoln Riley. Yet it’s precisely because Georgia has such a track record that Alexander felt he would play more at USC. Georgia primarily used him in third-down situations, but Alexander felt he was more effective on first and second downs.

“‘I feel as if there wasn’t a significant amount of snaps [at Georgia],” Alexander said to ESPN. “I was more of a pass-rush specialist in year one, so coming into the spring, I wanted to be in a position where I could show my versatility as a player. I felt like I wasn’t able to do that at Georgia. I was a third-down specialist, and I’m more of a first-, second-down player. I can play every down.'”

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Bear Alexander is dreaming big for USC this season

Bear Alexander does not have modest goals. He wants it all in 2023. The big Q: Can he live up to that standard? #USC

The fate of the 2023 USC football team will likely depend on how well the defense does. The offense is going to be great as long as Caleb Williams and most offensive line starters remain healthy. The defense has far more questions. It could be better, but we all need to see proof of concept before we assume it will be better.

One of the big new additions to that defense is raising the bar and putting forth a very high standard for himself.

Defensive lineman Bear Alexander, the transfer from Georgia, expects nothing less than domination. That’s his standard. That’s what he wants to achieve — not in the full course of his USC career, but this year, this season.

Alexander, other USC players, and USC coaches all met the press for USC media day in Los Angeles on Thursday. Alexander could not have been clearer or more direct in stating his goals. Ryan Kartje of the Los Angeles Times relayed Alexander’s words to the public:

If Bear Alexander can live up to this standard, USC’s season will likely be a smashing success.

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The most important USC football players entering the 2023 season

This is a topic we fleshed out with @TrojanConquests, focusing mostly on the defense. We’ll add offensive players to this list.

Does USC have enough pieces on defense to make the College Football Playoff this season? We talked about this question in a separate piece, getting the insights of USC football analyst Tim Prangley.

The appropriate and primary point of focus for USC this season has to be the defense. We know the offense is going to be great as long as Caleb Williams and most of the offensive line remain healthy, but it’s on defense where USC faces so many questions. The hope within the program is that with another year of strength and weight training, plus added exposure to Alex Grinch’s scheme, guys will be more advanced in their physical development and their awareness of what’s happening on the field.

Then consider the new recruits (Tackett Curtis) and the transfer portal additions (Anthony Lucas, Christian Roland-Wallace, Mason Cobb, Jack Sullivan, and others) which will add depth to the roster. Then add the injured players who, if healthy, will give USC even more bodies: Domani Jackson and Romello Height come to mind here (and there are others).

Among these defensive players, which pieces are the most important ones? We will look at those indispensable defensive players, plus the biggest and most important offensive players, in this 2023 list, which will be unveiled below.

Here we go:

Four-star edge Kameryn Fountain will join Bear Alexander on USC front seven

Kameryn Fountain from Atlanta. Bear Alexander from Athens. #USC is “Georgia-fying” its front seven for 2024.

According to a report from 247Sports.com’s Steve Wiltfong, four-star Booker T. Washington Atlanta (GA) defensive lineman Kameryn Fountain has committed to USC.

Fountain chose USC over Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and a number of other power five programs. A lot of USC fans felt this particular recruitment rated as a surprise, but given the momentum the Trojans have under Lincoln Riley, maybe this should have been given a greater chance of happening.

What matters most: It did in fact happen.

The 6-foot-5, 237-pound Kam Fountain is ranked by 247Sports as the nation’s No. 6 edge and No. 50 prospect overall for the 2024 class.

The USC Trojans’ 2024 recruiting class  has now jumped to No. 14 in the 2024 On3 Industry Team Recruiting Rankings. USC’s class ranks also takes a jump for 2024. The Trojans are now No. 4 in the Big Ten, having previously been ranked No. 18.

With Fountain and top 100 cornerback Dakoda Fields both committing to USC on Monday, the Trojans now have two top-100 prospects on defense in their 2024 class. That’s one more than the program had last cycle (Braylan Shelby).

Fountain, in 2024, will team with Bear Alexander to give USC’s front seven a distinct Georgia flavor.

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USC target, No. 1 2024 recruit Dylan Raiola commits to Georgia

.@UGAWire gets Dylan Raiola, we got Bear Alexander. Fair trade? That’s a question we can all discuss. #USC

USC got Bear Alexander from Georgia. The Trojans, however, lost out on a big recruitment to Georgia. Fair trade? That’s for you to decide, but the news is confirmed: Dylan Raiola, an elite quarterback who was the top available recruit in the Class of 2024, has committed to Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs.

UGA Wire has more on the story with Raiola:

“He chose Georgia over Nebraska, Oregon and USC.

“A former Ohio State commitment, Raiola last visited UGA in March and plans to do so again in June. It was his sixth visit to UGA.  Georgia was also the first program to offer Raiola back in June of 2021.

“Raiola has strong ties to Georgia via former Bulldog quarterback Matthew Stafford, who is Raiola’s godfather.

“Raiola’s father, Dominic, is a former Nebraska center who spent several years of his NFL career playing alongside Stafford for the Detroit Lions.”

Let’s examine this development and look at its larger significance in college football, with USC being part of the picture:

USC football brings distinct SEC flavor into 2023

#USC’s increased SEC flavor on its 2023 roster is impossible to ignore.

During the first few months of the 2020 pandemic, when we had no idea if there would be any college football played in the autumn of that same year, we created a series, “USC and the SEC,” in which we looked back at various intersections between the Trojans and the Southeastern Conference on the gridiron.

We recalled the 1978 USC win over Alabama, for instance:

“There was a fascinating symmetry between the 1977 and 1978 Alabama-USC games,” we noted. “In 1977, Alabama snapped a 15-game USC winning streak. In 1978, USC broke Alabama’s 13-game winning binge. In both instances, one team was ranked No. 7, the other team No. 1. In both instances, the No. 7 team beat the No. 1 team. In both instances, the road team won. In both instances, the winner of the game entered the bowl season ranked No. 3, then won its bowl game, and finished No. 2 in the final Associated Press writers’ poll.”

As USC enters the 2023 college football season, there is a noticeable SEC flavor in Los Angeles. Lincoln Riley knows he has needed higher-quality players to compete for the biggest prizes in the sport. Let’s consider the ways in which USC has “SEC-ified” itself:

Trojans Wire joins USC YouTube show to discuss 2023 NFL draft, the portal, and more

We joined @TrojanConquests and @LBCTrojan to review the #NFLDraft and evaluate more #USC successes in the transfer portal at the @VoiceOfCFB.

There is so much to discuss this week in the world of USC football. Life will become a lot more quiet and calm in June and July, before August camp and the ramp-up to the regular season, which starts in late August against San Jose State. Right now, though, the first days of May provide an intersection between the NFL draft and the transfer portal. USC is in the thick of these storylines, so there is a need to make sense of everything which has happened over the past several days.

We joined Tim Prangley and Rick Anaya on their new USC show, Trojan Conquest Live, at The Voice of College Football. We have plenty of NFL draft analysis and a fresh look at the transfer portal and the Trojans’ new additions, Emmanuel Pregnon and Bear Alexander.

Trojan Conquest Live airs every Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific. Subscribe to, like, and share the USC channel at The Voice of College Football.

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The optimistic view of Bear Alexander and what he will do for USC football

Is Bear Alexander guaranteed to be a star at #USC? No … but there’s a strong case to make for why he’ll be special.

USC fans should definitely be excited about Bear Alexander and what the Georgia transfer can do for the Trojans. Georgia had big plans for him this season, so it’s not as though the Bulldogs were happy to let him go, thinking they had the rest of their defensive roster filled out. No, it’s not like that. Our partners at UGA Wire will tell you that.

USC is getting a player with a lot of upside, but that obviously invites the question: Will that upside translate into realized potential? Will these positive possibilities be fulfilled, or will they be squandered?

The optimistic view for USC and Bear Alexander rests on one core pillar: Shaun Nua.

USC’s defensive line coach knows how to develop elite talent. He turned Aidan Hutchinson into the 2021 Heisman Trophy runner-up at Michigan, behind Bryce Young of Alabama. When Nua gets a chance to work with a top-flight prospect, he has shown he can deliver the goods.

It’s not just Alex Grinch who is coaching the Bear; it’s Shaun Nua. That might be the detail here which unlocks Bear Alexander’s potential.

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Bear market: Trojans Wire discusses Bear Alexander on national YouTube show

We care about the Bear. We talked to @MarkRogersTV at the @VoiceOfCFB about Bear Alexander, the big story at #USC.

There is so much to say and write about Bear Alexander, partly because it’s the offseason, but partly because he really does raise a lot of fresh questions about USC’s 2023 defense.

“If Bear Alexander really is as good as his reputation suggests, and if this Kirby Smart-coached freshman can hit his stride with USC as a sophomore under Alex Grinch, the Trojans will receive an upgrade at the very position where they needed help,” we wrote. “Their run defense will get better. Their toughness and size up front will become more pronounced. Other defensive linemen will benefit from the attention offensive linemen have to pay to the Bear. The domino effect could be notable in its scope and scale.”

If you want a detailed Bear Alexander discussion, we talked about him for a good half-hour with our friend Mark Rogers at The Voice of College Football on our weekly USC show. We also addressed other topics, including the transfer portal.

Subscribe to, like, and share Mark’s USC channel at The Voice of College Football.

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