Sunday’s Takeaway: USC Is Playing Red Rover Defense

As a kid did you ever play a game of Red Rover with friends to test your strength and camaraderie as a group? Because there are times when it looks like USC’s defense is being called out by their opponent.

Much like the game of football, the game of Red Rover’s rules are simple. Two teams get lined up and attempt to break their opponent’s line of defense by running through it.

“Red Rover Red Rover, send college football right over!”

I don’t know about many of you. But one of my favorite games growing up was standing side by side with my friends, locking arms, while some other friends tried to break through our chain.

The rules were simple.

Flip a coin and the team that wins the coin toss goes first.

Then, that team decides who from the other team they want to call over, and shouts, “Red rover, Red rover, send (San Jose St.) on over!” Then the called-out player runs toward that team with one job to find that team’s weakest link and break through the locked hands of two teammates.

If they don’t, they lose and they have to join that team.

After watching USC’s defense play, I think Red Rover is the best way to look for USC’s weakness.

Football is a simple game too.

The goal is to find a way and break through the opponent’s lineup team of players and score points. One strategy is to run as hard as you can between two players and see what happens. But when USC’s team has bigger, stronger, and faster players, then teams like San Jose St. need a simple strategy.–Locate and start attacking the weakest part of the team

USC’s weakest link with Alex Grinch’s defense in 2022 was its ability to tackle. The other weak link was not having enough players to win the game.

So whether those players heard the Transfer Portal Sirens calling them out to be Trojans, or Lincoln Riley’s ability to sell a vision, a whole bunch of new players arrived trying to fix the weaknesses.

When the Spartans used the simple strategy of running right at the Trojans’ defense, USC won that round more often than they lost. But when USC’s defense shifts and gets overly aggressive, which is a part of Grinch’s scheme, the defense looks weak and ineffective.

It’s time to call Alex Grinch Red Rover!

Despite the scoreboard showing USC’s 56-28 Trojans win, Lincoln Riley needs to call his defensive coordinator over. Because ams Riley said following the marathon contest, “giving up the late 1st half touchdown is “unacceptable!”

A new year with more players showing similar results wasn’t exactly the type of endorsement Alex Grinch needed to show his boss who took a lot of heat during the offseason for retaining him. Riley also knows it’s the big red elephant in the room and was called out to explain it after the game.

Riley backed up his friend and went into the offseason expecting to see improvement. The offseason focus shifted to making the Trojans’ defense bigger, stronger, and deeper, and that’s how they’d get better.

The defense got bigger, stronger, and deeper.

However, the better part is still to being determined and it’s why Riley sighed before saying, “Here we go, everyone’s gonna write the narrative after the first game.”

I’m not calling out the USC defense and their tackling because it was much better than last season. Especially in those one-on-one open field chances.

Although I am calling out the defensive scheme that Alex Grinch likes to use while challenging his opponents weaknesses.

Right now Grinch’s defensive strategy is the Trojans’ defense biggest weakness.

Unfortunately, the media can only call out Grinch’s name to come over and talk about the defense’s weaknesses on Tuesdays .

Sorry, but these are Lincoln Riley’s Red Rover rules.

The post Sunday’s Takeaway: USC Is Playing Red Rover Defense appeared first on On3.