Tag: Doug Belk

USC lands commitment from former NC State safety

USC gets some reinforcements in the secondary.

Another day, another transfer portal addition for USC football. On Tuesday, the Trojans picked up a commitment from former NC State safety Bishop Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald will come to USC with one year of eligibility remaining.

After starting his career at junior college, Fitzgerald spent the last two seasons with the Wolfpack. He quickly emerged as one of the top players on NC State’s defense, recording 97 tackles, 11 passes defended, five interceptions, and a forced fumble over the course of two seasons. In 2024, he earned Honorable Mention All-ACC honors.

Now, he will head to USC and join a Trojans defense that is looking to replace the majority of its production from last season. The Trojans do, however, return arguably their best defensive player from last season in safety Kamari Ramsey. In Ramsey and Fitzgerald, USC should have one of the top safety duos in the Big Ten next season.

While safety looks to be in good shape, however, the Trojans still have major holes to fill at cornerback, linebacker, and defensive line. It will be imperative that Lincoln Riley and his staff take further steps to fill those holes prior to the start of spring practice.

USC safety Kamari Ramsey to return for 2025 season

Kamari Ramsey returning for 2025 is another hugely positive piece of roster news for USC.

After landing a big-time transfer commit in the morning, the USC defense got another piece of good news later on Wednesday when safety Kamari Ramsey announced that he will be returning to USC football in 2025.

“USC is a special place, and I’ve loved being a part of the Trojan Family,” Ramsey wrote on social media. “After much prayer and discussion, I’ve decided that there’s more I want to accomplish with my teammates. I’m excited to run out of the Coliseum tunnel again next season wearing the Cardinal and Gold.”

After transferring in from crosstown rival UCLA alongside defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, Ramsey was one of USC’s best defensive players in 2024. As a redshirt sophomore, he recorded 53 tackles, five passes defended, and two forced fumbles.

Had he declared for the NFL Draft, Ramsey likely would have been a mid-round pick. Instead, he will enter next season as one of the top safeties in the country with the opportunity to play himself into the first round conversation.

Ramsey and the Trojans will conclude the 2024 season in the Las Vegas Bowl against Texas A&M on December 27.

USC lands four-star cornerback commit

There’s one. USC gets a high-end 2026 cornerback as Doug Belk continues to do a lot of good work on the trail.

On Friday, USC football landed a commitment from four-star cornerback RJ Sermons.

A native of Rancho Cucamonga, California, On3 Consensus ranks Sermons as the No. 32 overall player in the class of 2026. He is also the No. 2 cornerback in his class, and the No. 32 player in the state of California.

Sermons chose the Trojans over Oregon, Washington, and Notre Dame.

Landing Sermons is a big early victory for defensive backs coach Doug Belk in the 2026 cycle. The Trojans now have seven players committed in the 2026 cycle, giving them the No. 2 class in the country.

Given how quickly things change in today’s world of college football, however, holding onto that class for the next 12 months will bring along its own set of challenges. Whether or not USC is able to do so could ultimately determine the direction of Lincoln Riley’s tenure.

The Trojans have to build roster depth for the future. This is not a 2025 pickup, but it does point the way to a better long-term outlook for the program.

USC lands first transfer of December cycle, takes advantage of UCF’s changes

USC bolstered its 2025 secondary. The Trojans have a lot more work to do to fill out their 2025 roster, especially on defense, but this is a start.

USC football might still have one game left to play in 2024, but the Trojans have already begun getting ready for 2025. On Thursday, USC landed its first transfer portal commitment of the offseason, former UCF cornerback Chasen Johnson.

As a true freshman at UCF in 2024, Johnson was able to find his way into the starting lineup by the end of the season. However, when head coach Gus Malzahn bolted from the program to take the offensive coordinator job at Florida State, Johnson wanted to change locations himself. On the year, he recorded 18 tackles and two passes defended for the Knights.

It is a much needed addition for a USC secondary that will lose the vast majority of its production from this season. Top cornerbacks Greedy Vance Jr., Jaylin Smith, Jacobe Covington, DeCarlos Nicholson, and John Humphrey are all out of eligibility, as is starting safety Akili Arnold.

Johnson is USC’s first transfer pickup of the 2025 cycle. With more than a dozen Trojans having already entered the portal, he figures to be the first of many additions as Lincoln Riley and his staff look to rebuild the roster.

Trojans’ secondary coach Doug Belk ‘silently’ stacking recruiting victories for USC

Doug Belk might got get as many headlines as D’Anton Lynn or Eric Henderson, but he is earning his place at USC.

Lincoln Riley added Doug Belk to the USC football staff during his 2023 defensive coaching staff purge. Belk was asked to improve and transform a USC secondary which did not evolve or get the level of player development it needed from Alex Grinch and Donte Williams.

It shouldn’t be ignored that Taylor Mays got a lot out of the USC secondary in the Holiday Bowl, but that was in an interim capacity. Riley needed a heavy hitter to come in and change the back line of the USC defense. We haven’t yet seen Belk coach USC on a college football game day — his big debut is against LSU in a few weeks — but while coordinator D’Anton Lynn and defensive line coach Eric Henderson might have grabbed more headlines, Belk has silently gone about his business and showed what he can do in recruiting and player acquisition.

USC just received a commitment from Kendarius Reddick, the 5-foot-11, 170-pound four-star safety from Thomasville, Ga. Doug Belk did a solid job  was able to flip Reddick from UCF, another instance of USC going into the Deep South and getting a highly-rated player.  Reddick is a great addition to current 2025 commits Shamar Arnoux and Trestin Castro.

Belk has been on a nice run since his hire late in 2023.  He hung on to the commitments of Marcelles Williams, Isaiah Rubin and Braylon Conley in the 2024 class. If he can hang on to current commits: Brandon Lockhart, Madden Riordan and Joshua Holland while closing on RJ Sermons in 2026, the Trojans secondary can be elite.

He is speaking softly but is beginning to make his mark for the Trojans, improving the quality of the USC secondary.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

USC Trojans land four-star safety from Georgia, Kendarius Reddick

Doug Belk flips a UCF commit from the state of Georgia.

Four-star safety Kendarius Reddick has given a verbal commitment to join the USC Trojans’ 2025 recruiting class.  Reddick is proof of how hard defensive backs coach Doug Belk and the rest of the USC coaching staff are hitting SEC country in this year’s high school recruiting class.  Reddick hails from Thomasville, Georgia, a state that USC has had mixed success in over the past few years.

Here’s what Trojans Wire’s Donovan James had to say back in June when Reddick visited the Trojans:

“Reddick was committed to UCF since February, when he flipped his commitment from Auburn, who he’d previously been committed to since October 2023.”

“Listed at 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite has Reddick as the No. 108 player, No. 7 safety and No. 12 player from the state of Georgia in 2025.”

“In his first three seasons of football, Reddick had 157 tackles, five interceptions, five tackles for a loss and two sacks at Thomas County Central High School in Georgia.”

USC continues to flip commitments from the South, and this flip has both Georgia and Florida connections.

The Trojans now hold four commitments from the state of Georgia in the current class, and all of them are four-star prospects according the the 247Composite Rankings. Three are on the defensive side of the ball. USC currently has 17 verbal commits from the Class of 2025. Reddick joins Carde Smith, Shamar Arnoux, Matai Tagoa’i, Jadon Perlotte, Romero Ison, Harry Dalton III, Hayden Lowe, Trestin Castro, Gus Cordova, Willi Wascher, Riley Wormley, Hayden Lowe, Elijah Vaikona, Corey Simms, Daune Morris, Tanook Hines, and Julian Lewis

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Pundits are not optimistic about 2024 USC defense even with new staff

USC might not have the depth it needs on defense, but its frontline quality seems to be good.

This is a recurring theme in the world of college football commentary and analysis in the 2024 offseason: Everyone knows that USC and Lincoln Riley overhauled their defensive coaching staff. Everyone knows Alex Grinch won’t coach these players in 2024. Everyone knows there will be different voices in the room. Everyone knows D’Anton Lynn did a tremendous job of whipping a previously mediocre UCLA defense into shape in one year last season. Everyone knows USC has defensive coaches who are highly credentialed. Yet, it still isn’t translating into high ratings and strongly positive evaluations of the 2024 USC defense.

To be fair to the pundits, USC does have questions about its depth. The Trojans have not accumulated the number of quality players which can withstand attrition if it hits hard this year. The Big Ten figures to be physically punishing in such a way that USC’s depth probably will be tested at some point. However, USC’s starting 11 on defense might be underrated. The Trojans’ frontline talent might be getting underestimated a little by analysts such as Phil Steele. We talked about this on The Voice of College Football:

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Doug Belk USC secondary is underrated by Phil Steele

USC’s secondary has a point to prove.

The USC football team has a secondary which, in the eyes of most fans, should be good this year. Legendary college football magazine publisher Phil Steele isn’t as convinced the Trojans will have a top secondary. He rated the USC secondary at No. 55 in his preseason projections. Doug Belk has a chance to make a statement in response to that ranking.

USC’s Akili Arnold had the fourth-highest coverage grade of any returning safety in the Power Five ranks of college football last year according to PFF. He received All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention in 2023.  PFF recently tweeted out that Akili Arnold has allowed one touchdown in 569 coverage snaps since 2021, which has led him to an impressive 88.1 coverage grade.

Kamari Ramsey, DeCarlos Nicholson, Greedy Vance, and John Humphrey were all added in the offseason to overhaul the secondary. Jacobe Covington will compete for a starting cornerback job with Nicholson and Humphrey, if they can hold off red-hot true freshman (from St. John Bosco) Marcelles Williams, who impressed in spring camp and at the spring game with his ballhawking skills.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Some USC fans are worried about negative recruiting toward coaching staff

Are other schools telling recruits that USC’s defensive coaches will leave at the first possible opportunity?

On our recent USC football call-in show at The Voice of College Football, an interesting discussion came up at 21:50 in the broadcast. A caller brought up a great point about Matt Entz, Doug Belk and D’Anton Lynn and their plans to move on from USC. Is this hurting recruiting?

Matt Entz, the linebacker coach, made it very clear that he is at USC to pick up FBS experience in recruiting and team operations — two holes in his resume that have limited his attempts to move up to the FBS level after a very successful run at FCS powerhouse North Dakota State.

Doug Belk also was a defensive coordinator who has stepped down in terms of status and overall job title to coach the secondary at USC. He has sacrificed something to come here.

D’Anton Lynn is an NFL guy with the Baltimore Ravens. He did go to UCLA, but he was in the NFL and wanted to test himself at the collegiate level before he eventually returns back to the pro game at some point in the future.

We address these concerns in the video below (at 21:50), noting how other schools are naturally inclined to negatively recruit against the possible flight risks for this USC football coaching staff:

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.

Will Drew Allar be the best quarterback USC faces in the Big Ten season?

Is Drew Allar ready to make a big leap from his underwhelming 2023 season at Penn State?

Penn State football analyst Marty Leap, from Rivals’ Happy Valley Insider, talked to us on our USC football show at The Voice of College Football. He explained that Drew Allar has all the tools and he has the arm talent to be an elite quarterback. Allar had issues which were similar to the ones Caleb Williams faced in 2023, with receivers not getting open. In addition to that, Mike Yurcich’s offense was too conservative.

Will the revamped USC secondary under D’Anton Lynn and Doug Belk have the Trojans’ talented veteran corners and safeties ready to ground new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki’s Penn State passing game? Drew Allar will try to make the pieces of the puzzle fit for Penn State’s passing attack, but USC will try to scatter those puzzle pieces when the Trojans host the Nittany Lions on Oct. 12, in one of the bigger matchups of the 2024 Big Ten season. Just how good is Drew Allar as a Big Ten quarterback? That’s one of the things we explored on our Penn State preview with Marty Leap:

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, and Ducks Wire. Follow our newest sites, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Check out more NFL draft coverage with the USA TODAY Sports NFL Draft Hub.