defensive coordinator

As an aspiring young quarterback at Muleshoe High in the early 2000s, Lincoln Riley attended a football camp at Texas Christian University, run by a coach known even then as a mastermind of defense, a man whose ideas and 4-2-5 scheme would one day be disseminated across college football.

Gary Patterson had just been elevated from defensive coordinator to head coach at TCU, a job he would occupy for the next two decades. Around the same time, his staff saw something in Riley. They talked briefly about giving him a shot at safety on Patterson’s vaunted TCU defense.

“Needless to say,” Riley told The Oklahoman in 2018, “it didn’t turn out.”

But a quarter-century after first crossing paths at that camp, it’s now the young quarterback giving the old ball coach a chance to prove himself.

When USC announced it was hiring Patterson as Riley’s defensive coordinator in January, ears perked up across college football. On one hand, Patterson, 66, is a freshly minted College Football Hall of Famer and one of the great defensive minds of the modern era. On the other hand, he hasn’t led a college football team since 2021, when he was forced out at TCU, and a lot has changed in the sport since. Not to mention it’s been more than 25 years since Patterson last served as a coordinator.

Those were fair concerns, considering all that’s riding on Riley getting it right with Patterson, his third defensive coordinator in five seasons. But after seven months with him on the job, you won’t find anyone at USC — players, coaches or administrators alike — with an ounce of distress over Patterson’s stamina.

“I think I would have had more reservations had I not known him,” Riley said. “But that fire still burns very, very hot.”

That much was obvious in the spring when Patterson jumped into the middle of a tackling circuit to teach proper technique, and ended up running through the whole drill. He even delivered a blow at the end.

“He knocked the guy back,” said safeties coach Paul Gonzales, who coached with Patterson for a decade at TCU. “For a 60-year old guy, he still got some pop.”

USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson watches practice in March.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Riley is betting big on that translating to the Trojans’ defense this fall. Over his four seasons as USC’s coach, there’s no mistaking what’s held Riley back from reaching the same heights at USC as he had at Oklahoma. The Trojans finished 124th, 104th, 87th and 65th in yards allowed per play during those years.

At TCU, Patterson’s defenses finished No. 1 in yards allowed five times during a 10-year stretch. Yet in the second half of his tenure at TCU, there was a noticeable decline, as his defenses finished in the top 25 of that same category just twice.

It was during that time that Riley’s offense went toe-to-toe with Patterson’s defense on numerous occasions. Riley, who was in his first head coaching job at Oklahoma, got the better of Patterson in each of their four meetings, piling up at least 498 total yards each time out.

“There was never anyone who was more of a pain to gameplan for or try to move the ball against than this guy,” Riley said.

During his five years away from coaching, Patterson said he actually spent more time studying the game than he had at TCU, where he was often consumed with other responsibilities. After consulting briefly at Texas and Baylor, Patterson took a job with an Amazon college football show, he says, primarily for the subscription service that came with it. Every Sunday morning, he’d watch whatever college game he wanted, just to stay fresh.

When he did return to coaching, Patterson didn’t just want to install the same scheme he used at TCU. So he closely studied Ohio State and Indiana’s defenses, which gave up a combined 32 touchdowns last season — seven fewer than USC’s defense (39). He took cues on how both clamped down better than anyone else in the red zone, where they each allowed opponents to convert touchdowns just 37% of the time.

“All I did was do football,” Patterson said. “I mean, it’s like getting married. I mean, it’s like I got nothing else. I wasn’t doing anything else.”

Those habits haven’t changed at USC. When other assistants took time for vacation this summer, Patterson stayed in the facility. He wanted to hone in on how to install his defense for a second time this fall. So he came in every day before 7 a.m., in a mostly empty office — just to beat the traffic.

“You want to change things, it’s a full-time job,” Patterson said. “It’s not one of those things that you do 70 or 80% of your time.”

It also gave him time to get to know his new players, each of whom have been summarily stunned by their veteran coach’s vitality.

“I don’t know how old he is, but he‘s out there like he’s 30,” linebacker Desman Stephens said. “He‘s still being active with us. He’s showing us drills. Like, if he want it done right, he gonna show you the exact way how to do it.”

So far, at USC, Patterson has had his hands on just about every detail of the defense. Which is precisely what Riley envisioned after watching him coach at TCU — and why he wasn’t worried about the game passing Patterson by.

“He was such a hands-on head coach,” Riley said. “He wasn’t a head coach just kind of doing a practice schedule, doing the speech, getting out early. He didn’t just straight CEO this thing, right? He was still calling defense, still game planning. He was very involved in every aspect of that program through all those years.”

USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson fist bumps linebacker Desman Stephens during practice on Aug. 5.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

He won’t have to do that at USC. And Patterson seems perfectly fine with that.

But while others still wonder if he can make a successful return to college football, with a scheme that hasn’t been tested since 2021, Patterson is pretty confident his decades of experience count for something, too.

“It’s an advantage for me compared to somebody that’s 30 years old and doesn’t have kids, never been married, doesn’t know what it’s like to grow somebody up and raise a family and do things,” Patterson said.

“This is, I think, my 45th season. … “There’s not a lot of guys in this profession of the age where you can go back to all the things that I’ve learned through all the years.”

CHICAGO — The stage was set this past summer, and Lincoln Riley was a ball of nerves.

The USC coach should’ve been used to weathering pressure by that point. After all, his previous four seasons spent coaching the Trojans had been nothing short of a powder keg, filled with ups and downs, as well as a constant undercurrent of tension and uncertainty. But in this particular case, success was out of Riley’s control. He wasn’t even near a football field.

Rather, he was sitting in the audience of a local dance recital, waiting on his two young daughters, Sloan and Stella, who were each making their solo dancing debut with their company.

“This was the first year, stepping out on their own, no one else to rely on,” Riley said. “But they told me, ‘Dad, we’ve got it.’”

Entering his fifth and most pivotal season yet at USC, their father can relate to that sentiment. While the spotlight burns brighter than ever and the collective college football world is spinning 2026 as a make-or-break moment for Riley, the coach had never sounded so confident that his Trojans had turned a corner than he did Tuesday.

“I’ve felt the pressure to win every single year here,” Riley said during Big Ten media days. “What does feel different is that I think our opportunity to do that is greater than what it has been. It just flat out is. The things you need to win, we have more of than we had in the first four years.”

Riley, of course, has made that case before. After each of the last two seasons, in fact. But it’s never been quite as compelling as it is now.

As the coach sees it, USC now boasts more depth on both sides of the ball than at any point in his tenure, in large part because of bringing in the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation in January. Riley also added a Hall of Fame coach at defensive coordinator in hopes of stabilizing matters on that side of the ball. And 10 days earlier, the program moved into its new, state-of-the-art football facility, with all the amenities anyone could ask for.

“It’s just a culmination of all of it, you know?” Riley said. “It is just so much more well-equipped to win consistently right now. It’s so different.”

That’s never been a question for Riley’s offenses at USC, and this year should be no different, with third-year starter Jayden Maiava returning at quarterback and a two-pronged backfield in Waymond Jordan and King Miller leading the way in the run game. The offensive line also looks like Riley’s strongest unit yet in five seasons.

The doubts, per usual, are on defense, where the Trojans are not the most seasoned group.

“The entire defense is just very young compared to last year,” defensive tackle Jide Abasiri said.

Riley is also now working with his third defensive coordinator in five seasons. And one who hasn’t coached in five years, at that.

Gary Patterson does have an impressive resume, with years of top-tier defenses at Texas Christian. And he continues to get rave reviews from Riley, who called the Hall of Famer “one of one” on Tuesday.

“You really have somebody that is like a head coach in that room,” Riley said. “The guy’s one of the most experienced, accomplished coaches in the game. Like, it just is what it is.

“I think just my confidence level and, you know, what’s being handled, how it’s being handled, how we’re developing, how we’re using our roster … is just really, really high right now.”

It better be at this point, considering all that USC has invested in Riley and his total teardown and rebuild of the Trojan football program. Across the city, billboards declaring “THE TIME IS NOW” make abundantly clear just how urgent this season will be at USC.

At the start of his fifth season, Riley is convinced the Trojans are right on schedule.

“All the things that help you win are better,” Riley said. “And that’s gonna give us more chances to win. That’s where my optimism comes from.”