The reaction to USC hiring D’Anton Lynn as defensive coordinator has generally been positive. However, it hasn’t been euphoric. There are reasons for this: Lynn is just 34. He has coached college football for one season. He doesn’t have a large list of recruiting victories. College football programs have often paid a price for buying into a coach based on one season.
All those reasons contain a degree of logic. However, it seems that a portion of USC fans aren’t fully buying the positive case for D’Anton Lynn.
He greatly — not slightly — improved the UCLA defense. He improved that defense by a large margin even though the UCLA offense was bad. Lynn did what he did with less-than-elite talent. His NFL history should help him a lot on the recruiting trail.
The upside is so considerable that the downside pales in comparison. USC fans who lament the fact that the Trojans didn’t land Jim Leonhard as defensive coordinator need to embrace D’Anton Lynn.
We talked about that, the transfer portal, the Holiday Bowl and more with Mark Rogers and Tim Prangley at The Voice of College Football:
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