USC faces a balancing act this season, at least on the defensive side of the ball: Be realistic and honest about where the defense is, but don’t settle for mediocrity, either. Don’t be quick to claim that improvement is happening, but vigorously work hard to create that improvement every week.
Trojans Wire editor Matt Zemek spoke to Nick Shepkowski of Fighting Irish Wire about the USC defense:
“The panic meter at USC, on a scale of 1 to 10, is probably a 6 after the San Jose State game. People know it’s only the first game, but people also know that Alex Grinch doesn’t have a proven track record of figuring things out on defense. There were a few tweets from USC fans wondering where Jim Leonhard was and if he was available, if that offers any indication of how happy USC fans are right now. USC beat writers (247Sports) were tweeting about resisting the temptation to check the USC message boards. It’s not a happy time right now, because fans saw this stuff last year and remember how everything ended. The coaches have time to fix things, but fans don’t really trust that the coaches will succeed, and it’s very hard to blame fans for thinking that way. Would a reasonable person trust Alex Grinch right now?”
Trust has to be earned. Expectations are low, but need to be raised if USC expects to be a championship program.
Check out our Pac-12 football predictions roundtable for the 2023 season.