USC’s secondary is getting a built-in reminder that the opener is creeping closer by the day.
Assistant secondary coach Sam Carter showed up to warmups Tuesday wearing a black jersey with No. 25 on it, part of a daily countdown that will keep changing until the Trojans kick off Aug. 29 against San Jose State at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The number will drop to 24 the next day, and head coach Lincoln Riley says the routine has become an easy way to keep the urgency front and center.
“We just got to make sure we get a jersey for him each day,” Riley said with a laugh. “It’s a good reminder for the guys of how close this is, and making every day count and understanding that the season’s close and we’ve got to be ready to roll.”
That message fits the mood in a defensive back room that is still sorting itself out under a new system. Carter was on the field Tuesday morning alongside defensive coordinator Gary Patterson and safeties coach/defensive pass game coordinator Paul Gonzales, forming a small Horned Frogs reunion while working with USC’s secondary.
Carter’s connection to Patterson goes back to his playing days at TCU from 2010-14, when he helped the Horned Frogs go 12-1 and win the Peach Bowl in 2014 while outscoring opponents 604-247.
“He’s high energy,” Riley said of Carter. “He’s got a lot of experience in Coach Patterson’s system both as a player and a coach and has been a really good addition to our defensive staff, our secondary.
He fits really well with Coach Gonzales, with (cornerbacks) Coach (Trovon) Reed and, obviously, Coach Patterson. That group really works well together.”
USC’s pass defense was in the middle of the Big Ten last season, allowing 207.5 passing yards per game and 22 touchdowns through the air. Now the Trojans are leaning on a hands-on teaching style from that trio of former Frogs, and the fourth day of camp offered a glimpse of how that looks in practice.
Redshirt senior cornerback Prophet Brown said the group’s biggest strength right now is that nobody is acting like they already have the answers.
“We have a really mature group that came in this year,” Brown said. “We all just feed off of each other.
We’re all learning. This is all our first year under this system together, so nobody’s more experienced or anything, but I feel like everybody’s learning and picking it up together.”
That learning shows up in the meeting room, where older players are helping younger ones and the younger players are speaking up too.
“It’s encouraging (words),” Reed said. “Showing them where they went wrong or if they did it right; if they made a PBU, how you could’ve got the pick. Holding a higher standard and never lowering the bar no matter the situation.”
During the media viewing period, the emphasis seemed to be on leverage and vision. Players lined up and worked through a drill built around a route to simulated quarterback play, the kind of camp work that can pay off later if the secondary turns more of those chances into pass breakups.
USC finished last season with 30 pass breakups, third fewest in the conference, though its 12 interceptions were sixth among 18 teams.
Safeties Christian Pierce and Kennedy Urlacher, along with Brown, were the first group through the drill, but that doesn’t mean much in a room where competition is still very much alive. Riley said the staff expects to play plenty of people and rotate at a number of spots, and that kind of depth battle is exactly what he wants to see.
“The fun thing for me,” Riley said, “is I can go through most of the positions and make a pretty fair argument there that we’re gonna have a lot of guys play and we’re gonna be able to rotate. That matters for competition. Iron truly does sharpen iron at this level.”
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