Tag: Bennie Wylie

Oklahoma football podcaster makes an important point about Bennie Wylie

An Oklahoma football podcaster had something important to say about Bennie Wylie. It’s worth considering.

USC football fans might not be interested in what Oklahoma football media personalities have to say, but when anyone makes a good point, it shouldn’t matter who is saying it. The substance of the comment should matter more than who made the remark. This applies to a line of analysis from Payton Guthrie of the Through the Keyhole Sooner football podcast. Guthrie invited Trojans Wire onto the show to discuss Lincoln Riley and the state of USC football. The conversation turned to Bennie Wylie, and this is when Guthrie made an insight worth considering.

Guthrie noted that while Wylie’s methods are certainly worth examining, the value and performance of a strength coach should be considered from another added vantage point. Guthrie said that strength coaching is about mindset and attitude as much as it is about teaching a certain technique in developing one’s body. Because strength coaches spend so much time with players — often more than the head coach — they are often the central voice of accountability for football players. Bennie Wylie, Guthrie told us, might not be as tough or as demanding as a strength coach needs to be. This, more than any side conversation about yoga or “lifting and eating,” might be the true reason Wylie hasn’t delivered maximum results under Lincoln Riley as a strength coach.

We invite you to subscribe to the Through the Keyhole podcast, which is a Patreon show, to hear our full episode with Payton Guthrie.

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Trojans Wire talks about Bennie Wylie’s USC improvements, D’Anton Lynn’s defensive scheme, more

Bennie Wylie and D’Anton Lynn are newsmakers this week at USC.

The USC Trojans are offering their fans reason to be optimistic as spring practice continues. USC football appears to be making real gains in the weight room and at the meal table, with players adding weight, muscle and size. Going into the Big Ten, USC needs to be rugged, muscular, and nasty. The Trojans are making progress and are getting closer to where they need to be. Bennie Wylie and Lincoln Riley are both pursuing a philosophical change. They are leaving behind their finesse-oriented ways and are making what seem to be necessary adjustments. D’Anton Lynn has to like that.

Lynn has discussed the versatility of his defensive scheme. USC fans have to like what they see in the Trojans’ new defensive coordinator, who tries to create the appearance of complexity but wants the scheme to be simple for his players. That is the exact approach USC has needed. It might finally be here.

I talked about these and other topics with callers on the USC Conquest Call-In Show at The Voice of College Football. Subscribe to, like, and share the USC YouTube channel at The Voice of College Football.

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Bennie Wylie and his USC staff made good on promise to bulk the team up

Lincoln Riley hasn’t just changed his philosophy on defense. Weight training methods have shifted as well.

The message for USC football this offseason has been simple and firm: Lift and eat. Lincoln Riley’s philosophical change to a more defense-first approach at USC has been accompanied by a change to a more aggressive method in strength and weight training. Wylie had used a more finesse-oriented approach at Oklahoma, but now, it’s all about getting bigger and tougher in Los Angeles. USC football players do look bigger across the board as spring practice gets going. The change in USC’s methods is beginning to take shape, a likely product not only of Riley’s adjusted priorities, but also of the departure of Alex Grinch, who stressed speed on defense at the expense of physical heft the past two seasons.

Bennie Wylie’s work is being affirmed by players, as this Orange County Register story indicates.

Braylan Shelby is just one of many USC players who can vouch for the effect of these new methods:

“I feel like they want us a lot stronger … just having that mentality, like, we gon’ go out there and we gon’ go mess something up,” Shelby said. “Like, we gon’ go out there, and we gon’ wreck havoc, we gon’ be there, we gon’ cause a scene.”

“That definitely helped, I guess, install in all our minds that – that’s the plan. That’s what we need to do this year. That’s what we need to change. That’s why we need to come different this year.”

USC receiver Ja’Kobi Lane said all of this is “built by Bennie,” a reference to Bennie Wylie. This really is a new chapter for USC football. Lift and eat has replaced the Alex Grinch finesse style and Lincoln Riley’s previous inability to cultivate elite defensive toughness at USC. That’s in the past. The Trojans, at least in attitude, have turned the page. Now the only thing left is to gain elite results.

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Though he is retaining Bennie Wylie, Lincoln Riley claims changes in approach are coming to USC

Changes need to be seen in 2024.

Many USC fans will rightly be upset that Lincoln Riley has chosen to retain strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie for 2024. However, if Wylie is going to be retained, he has to be a lot better than he was in 2023. USC was a soft team which got pushed around on both sides of the line of scrimmage. If Wylie is coming back for 2024 — and he is — Lincoln Riley needs to admit that previous methods aren’t working. He needs to expect something more — and something different — from Bennie Wylie.

Are we seeing evidence that Riley is demanding a different philosophy and approach? Yes, although we need to see events play out on the field in the spring and then in the summer, leading into the 2024 regular season.

247Sports has reported extensively on Riley’s and Wylie’s comments, which do point to a stated intent to change the methodology at USC. You can read up on all the things Riley and Wylie said on Monday.

Talk is cheap. Actions matter more than words. However, we needed to first see that Riley and Wylie understood the need for change and that current methods have failed. At least they get that. It’s the first step in a long process toward restoring USC football.

Now Riley and Wylie need to prove themselves, and D’Anton Lynn needs to make sure Wylie is developing his defensive players in the weight room so that the Trojans have all the pieces they need for 2024 and beyond.

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Lincoln Riley has no desire to fire strength coach Bennie Wylie, who will be with USC in 2024

In case you were wondering, no, Lincoln Riley won’t fire Bennie Wylie at USC.

In case any of you were holding out hope that USC head coach Lincoln Riley would fire strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie, we’re sorry to inform you that Wylie will be with the program in 2024.

Wylie made extensive comments Monday night about his vision and plan for USC football, a clear indication that Riley had absolutely no desire to fire him. Wylie is very much on board for the 2024 season.

USC was a soft team in 2023. Bennie Wylie has to bear some of the responsibility for that, shared with Riley himself. Riley has said that he wants USC to be bigger and tougher up front, which could be read as an indication that Riley isn’t entirely satisfied with what Wylie is doing and has done up to this point at USC. There are echoes of last offseason, in which Riley knew Alex Grinch wasn’t cutting it as defensive coordinator but was willing to give him one more chance to fully prove himself.

It could be the same with Wylie heading into 2024 and the Big Ten. Either USC improves and validates both Wylie and Riley together, or the Trojans get shoved around by opponents and show that Wylie is just not the man for the job.

Is it reasonable to give Wylie one more chance heading into the Big Ten? Yes … but that should also come with hot-seat-level pressure. If Wylie fails in 2024, he shouldn’t be around in 2025.

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USC’s terrible first half vs. UCLA is a massive indictment of strength coach Bennie Wylie

Strength coaches don’t really matter? UCLA was a lot stronger than #USC in the first half on Saturday.

If you watched the first half of USC’s regular-season finale against UCLA, you saw play after play in which a Bruin outmuscled a Trojan. It might have been on the line of scrimmage, a true trench battle in which the UCLA line was stronger than the USC line, both offense and defense. It might have been a UCLA defender ripping the ball away from a USC receiver. It might have been a UCLA defensive back outfighting a USC receiver for a downfield pass, gaining an interception. Again and again and again, UCLA showed it had tougher, stronger players than USC.

It is as though a message was being sent to USC head coach Lincoln Riley: “Your players aren’t strong enough. Your philosophy and vision for your strength and conditioning program are manifestly inadequate. You need to bring in a new strength coach and admit your current approach is wrong and insufficient.

USC simply has to fire strength coach Bennie Wylie. This first half against UCLA showed what we have been saying for weeks: This isn’t just an Alex Grinch problem. On the offensive and defensive lines, and on the perimeter, USC just wasn’t strong at all. UCLA was. It’s as simple as that. Wylie has to be fired, and a lot of people inside and outside the USC family agree, as you can see below:

It’s always better to win at USC … unless losing a game means Alex Grinch and Bennie Wylie get fired

#USC fans really need to think about this question.

Nearly every sports fan has been in this general situation at some point in life: His or her team is not having a good-enough season. The state of the team is not what it needs to be or should be. Late in the season, the coaches are on the hot seat. Winning games might rescue them and give them one more year, but losing might guarantee they get fired and replaced, ideally with someone much better.

In pro sports, losing games late in a disappointing season often carries the added benefit of getting a higher draft pick. In the case of the NFL, losing games — falling to the bottom of the standings — creates a more favorable schedule for the following season as well. The NFL frequently forces teams to ask themselves if it’s worth it to win two more games late in a season or tank for much better long-term odds and outcomes.

USC is not an NFL team, but we have to ask: Is it better for the Trojans to beat Washington this Saturday, or lose — especially if it’s a blowout — to make sure Alex Grinch and Bennie Wylie get fired?

Let’s go through the different elements of this conversation:

One glaring fact shows why Bennie Wylie is failing as USC strength coach

This is a searing indictment of Bennie Wylie.

The USC Trojans football team has struggled over the past six weeks, and questions are flying everywhere in Southern California.

The defense has been a major issue, and it’s only a matter of time before Alex Grinch finally gets fired. But, the offensive line has seen its fair share of issues as well.

In fact, as R.J. Abeytia points out, no USC offensive lineman or defensive lineman has won Pac-12 Lineman of the Week this entire season.

Caleb Williams knows all about the offensive line and what it has been going through. Caleb has been sacked 25 times this season, including four or more times in each of the last four games, and six times in the loss to Notre Dame.

Still, the defensive line — essentially, the defense as a whole — has been the biggest focus for the Trojans, and it hasn’t gotten any better as the season has continued. The Trojans gave up 49 points and barely held off Cal this past weekend. That was yet another abysmal Alex Grinch performance, but it also reflected how soft this team has become under strength coach Bennie Wylie. The lack of elite line play is the most central indication that something needs to change … and not just at one position … on this coaching staff.

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One reminder about developing strong football teams shows why Bennie Wylie must be fired

The strength coach isn’t developing a strong team, but why is Bennie Wylie really failing? Look below the surface.

The summer preceding this USC football season was filled with optimism for a number of reasons. One was that when players were observed in August practices, they appeared to be bigger and thicker than they were the season before. Players who were in the program in 2022 had seemingly developed their bodies.

We’re not here to dispute that players got bigger and thicker under strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie. We talked to people during the summer, and it was generally agreed upon that players were bigger.

However, after two months of live football action this season, we can make the following point: It isn’t translating into what we see on Saturdays.

Tim Prangley, who was part of our weekly USC show at The Voice of College Football, said this past Monday night that being bigger and being stronger are two different things.

It isn’t the job of the strength coach to create bigger players. It’s the job of a strength coach to create stronger players. USC doesn’t have stronger players. That’s why Bennie Wylie needs to be fired.

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Another very soft, weak performance by USC should seal Bennie Wylie’s fate as strength coach

If the team is weak, the strength coach obviously isn’t doing his job well. Time for a change at #USC.

Don’t reduce USC’s problems to Alex Grinch.

Yes, Grinch must go, but he’s not the only member of this football staff who has to be sent packing. Strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie has to go as well. That’s a core part of the story after USC’s tissue-soft display on Saturday against the California Golden Bears.

USC won, but the Trojans played a bad game. No one should be fooled by the final score. No one should be misled by a victory.

The product is still soft and way below par.

Remember: As bad as this defense is, and as bad as this defense has been, the offensive line has never played well against good teams this season. The USC offensive line clearly regressed against Cal, relative to the Utah game.

The fact USC isn’t getting good, tough line play on either side of the ball tells you the Trojans’ problems go far deeper than just Grinch. Wylie isn’t producing a strong team. Ergo, he should go. He has to be sent packing, too.

How soft is this team? Let’s consider what happened against Cal, which adds to the argument against Bennie Wylie: