Alex Grinch and one other coordinator are the favorites for the 2022 Broyles Award
The Broyles Award is one of the better and more prestigious awards in college football. Nothing matches the hype and attention visited upon the Heisman Trophy, but among all non-Heisman awards, the Broyles is significant for one obvious reason college football fans can readily appreciate: The winner of the award is almost always part of a very successful team.
The Broyles Award, named after legendary former Arkansas coach Frank Broyles, is given to the best assistant coach in college football. This is almost always a coordinator, given the prominence and centrality of coordinators in modern football.
One guy who won the Broyles Award several years ago? Lincoln Riley, who won in 2015 as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator under Bob Stoops. Riley helped Stoops make the College Football Playoff.
This year, a Riley assistant is in the running for the Broyles Award. We discuss why Alex Grinch is a leading contender, and maybe the favorite, for the award. Find out the identity of the other man who stands most centrally in Grinch’s path, too:
USC POINTS ALLOWED PER GAME
It figured to be a good year if USC could allow under 30 points per game, given how great the Trojans’ offense figured to be.
USC is allowing fewer than 20 points per game. USC is exceeding expectations by a lot, not a little.
USC SACKS
The Trojans aren’t just a half-decent team in terms of pressuring the quarterback. Heck, they aren’t just a top-10 team. They’re NUMBER ONE in the whole country in sacks. That’s insane! It’s truly remarkable. Tuli Tuipulotu has seven sacks, but it’s not just him. Nick Figueroa and others are getting in on the action as well. This is truly extraordinary work by Alex Grinch.
RED-ZONE DEFENSE
USC has gotten tons of red-zone stops, making the Trojans No. 6 in the nation in red-zone defensive performance (preventing touchdowns). This is a core part of the Trojans’ success under Grinch.
INTERCEPTIONS
USC collected four interceptions in two different games this season. The four-interception performance at Oregon State enabled the Trojans to win on a night when their offense scored only 17 points. Grinch’s defense, not Lincoln Riley’s offense, won that game in Corvallis, the true springboard toward a 6-0 record and a second half of the season which is filled with potential.
TURNOVER DIFFERENTIAL
USC is No. 1 in the nation in turnover differential at +14. The Trojans are the only team in the country with a double-digit positive turnover differential. That is remarkable.
GRINCH'S ANALYSIS
Grinch talked to Bryan D. Fischer of Fox Sports about this USC season and his methods:
“We talk about being an effort-based defense. Everybody likes to talk about talent and scheme — we like to talk about effort,” defensive coordinator Alex Grinch told FOX Sports. “There is no such thing as great talent without effort. There’s no scheme that’s going to make up for effort. That’s the thing that we circle.”
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
More from Grinch’s conversation with Bryan Fischer of Fox Sports:
“You know that when you go against one of the best offenses in the country, you’re going to be challenged on a day-in and day-out basis. That’s an advantage for us,” says Grinch. “For a defensive guy, I’ve been surrounded with elite (offensive) coaches. I guess I don’t know what it would feel like to not have frustrating spring football and fall camps. We’ve always tried to flip the script.”
LINCOLN RILEY ON THE USC DEFENSIVE FRONT
Riley talked to Bryan Fischer in the same Fox Sports article linked above:
“The front is the obvious thing, they’ve bought into the notion that if we’re not in the backfield, we’re not playing the way we want to play,” Riley said after practice on Tuesday. “We’ve been able to get production from multiple people. Tuli has obviously been a force for us, but it hasn’t been just Tuli.”
FORCING THE OFFENSE TO REACT
Grinch to Fischer in the Fox article:
“Football has made us adapt defensively, whether it’s through the pass game, the RPO, the quarterback run or tempo,” Grinch said. “You’re just in constant conflict. We’ve got to flip the story and make sure our guys have a confidence level that we get them some conflicts as well.”
KYLE WHITTINGHAM ON GRINCH'S SECONDARY
Whittingham was quoted in Fischer’s article:
“The secondary’s always athletic at S.C. You can look at any year for the last 50 years, and they’ve got great athletes back there,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said this week ahead of their meeting Saturday. “Between the secondary and the way the front’s playing, that’s really the reason they’ve been having success.”
THE "WORST" GAME
Strictly in terms of points allowed, USC’s worst 2022 game was the Stanford game, when it allowed 28 in Week 2.
That was a game in which USC led 41-14 midway through the third quarter. If that’s the worst game of the season, it shows how well this team has played.
HALFTIME WORK
Grinch has been tremendous at halftime, making great adjustments. USC allowed just one scoring drive to Arizona State after halftime (eight points). It shut out Washington State in the second half. Compare this to the Clay Helton nightmare in which USC got shredded in third quarters. It’s night and day.
NOT JUST TURNOVERS
USC is taking the ball away a lot, but against Washington State, USC dominated on defense without taking away the ball. Tuipulotu’s sacks and a collection of negative plays from other Trojan defenders put Washington State in a bind all night long.
PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
Getting Ceyair Wright, Max Williams, Calen Bullock, and other Clay Helton holdovers to play so well is a reflection of Grinch’s player development skills.
TRANSFORMATIVE TRANSFERS
Getting transfers to immediately play well and make an impact at a new school in a new system is also part of Grinch’s work. Solomon Byrd from Wyoming, Tyrone Taleni from Kansas State, and other non-headliner transfers have been good, important players. We’re not even talking about the stars such as Eric Gentry and Mekhi Blackmon. We knew they would be good. Byrd and Taleni show how well Grinch has been able to integrate players into the system.
THE STARS
Let’s acknowledge the stars, though: Grinch has allowed Gentry and Blackmon and Shane Lee to do what they do best. He hasn’t gotten in their way. He has not messed up this part of the project with USC’s defense. That’s part of good coaching, too.
BROYLES AWARD IN FOCUS
Let’s go deeper into the Broyles Award race. Alabama, Clemson, Michigan, Ohio State, and Georgia — the five teams ahead of USC in the polls — have not had a coordinator who has done an incredible, amazing job. Jim Knowles has been a good defensive coordinator for Ohio State, but not spectacular the way Grinch has. Grinch is going to remain at the top of the list if USC can maintain its current pace. Maybe the Trojans will have one really bad game this season. If that’s the only bad game they have, and the rest are decent to very good, Grinch will remain a top Broyles contender.
THE LEADING CONTENDER
If one other man can claim to be on equal standing with Grinch for the Broyles Award this year, it’s Illinois defensive coordinator Ryan Walters, who is a Colorado alumnus and a former football player with the Buffaloes. Our friends at Buffaloes Wire have him on the list of candidates for the open CU head coaching job.
Illinois just held Iowa to six points. That’s not incredibly amazing, given how bad Iowa’s offense is, but what’s tremendously impressive is that since Illinois scored only nine points, even one big mistake from the Illini defense could have cost them a victory. Walters’ defense never did make that one mistake. Illinois is a contender for the Big Ten West Division championship. If Illinois wins the West and makes the Big Ten Championship Game for the first time ever, USC will need to make the Pac-12 Championship Game to ensure that Grinch can fend off Walters for the award.
OTHER BROYLES CANDIDATES
Knowles of Ohio State will be in the conversation. Garrett Riley, TCU’s offensive coordinator, should be in the mix, since the Horned Frogs are still unbeaten heading into Week 7. Yes, Garrett is the brother of Lincoln Riley.
North Carolina State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson should be on this list. Wake Forest offensive coordinator Warren Ruggiero should be on this list. Tennessee’s Alex Golesh should be a candidate. UTSA offensive coordinator Will Stein should be included on this list as well. That’s a partial list of assistants who should be named Broyles semifinalists. We’ll see who is part of the select list of Broyles finalists when awards season arrives.
UTAH
If Grinch’s USC defense locks down Utah and grabs a win, that will significantly fuel Grinch’s Broyles candidacy.
SECOND HALF
UCLA-Oregon and the other big non-USC games in the Pac-12 could shape this award as well. Candidates such as Kenny Dillingham, the offensive coordinator at Oregon, could rise based on performances in second-half games in 2022. The Big Ten could create some new candidates in its big games, one of which is this week between Penn State and Michigan, two teams both ranked in the top 11.
Stay tuned.
FINAL REMINDER
Here we are, heading into Week 7, and USC’s defense under Grinch has not allowed 30 or more points in a single game. Who would have believed that? No one. Not one soul.
