USC football head coach Lincoln Riley summed it up the best when looking at the Trojans’ 2024 spring game. He said, “The story of the day was the defense making the offense pay for their mistakes.” The attacking and opportunistic USC defense had four interceptions on the day, three of them coming from the cornerbacks.
The Trojans’ new defensive coordinator, D’Anton Lynn, has been stressing all year long that he was successful at UCLA implementing his scheme in one offseason by using a methodical installation of the essential elements of the defense. He added new pieces as the season began and continued. This allowed for consistency on the field, where the players knew what their assignment was. Players were able to make the play their role was designed to complete. The word “consistency” has been one of the themes of spring camp.
I asked Doug Belk what is the one thing — over everything else — that he looks for in a cornerback to separate himself in a very talented and competitive defense. Belk had a one-word answer: “Consistency.” When Lincoln Riley talked about his talented true freshman from St. John Bosco, Marcelles Williams, he explained that he had an uncanny level of consistency for a true freshman corner.
During Saturday’s scrimmage, four of Belk’s cornerbacks made impressive plays. DeCarlos Nicholson intercepted a pass intended for Ja’Kobi Lane, displaying tight, physical coverage on the outside. Nicholson perfectly read the pass thrown inside by Jayden Maiava and took it away.
Williams, the younger brother of former Trojan safety Max Williams, made a highlight reel-worthy interception on the next drive. Williams baited Miller Moss underneath, dropped back, highpointed the ball, and made an athletic, leaping interception to take the ball away from Lane.
In a subsequent series, a third Trojan, Maliki Crawford, took advantage of a great play by defensive end Jide Abasiri’s bull rush. With Abasiri’s hand in Jake Jensen’s face, he never saw Crawford, who broke on the ball for the third defensive theft of the game.
Late in the scrimmage, cornerback Jacobe Covington tipped a pass from Moss that landed in the hands of nickel corner Prophet Brown. Brown took the interception back for a 100-plus-yard interception return for a touchdown, capping a successful day for Belk’s cornerbacks.
“That’s another example of the development. It’s plays that good defenses and good secondary players make, and we made most of them,” Riley explained. “We made plays on the ball. We didn’t really bust much the entire day. It’s a well-coached group. We have two of the best guys in the business that are coaching those guys, and when you have that, you see the results of it.”
USC will rely on the secondary to continue is marked improvement and shore up a defense that was much maligned in 2023 as it enters its first season in the Big Ten. The turnovers are great, but Riley noted that it is the consistency of this unit throughout the game that will be a barometer for defensive success in 2024.
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