The timeline for USC’s defensive coordinator search: Be quick but don’t hurry
The search for USC’s defensive coordinator shifts into high gear this week. Interviews — as we speak on Monday — should be getting underway. Calls should have been made on Sunday to line up interviews today and tomorrow with candidates.
The transfer portal opens on December 4. Recruiting is in huge need of improvement after USC sank like a rock in the recruiting rankings from mid-July through mid-November. Of course USC needs to act quickly, but no one should be worried that the Trojans have not hired their man today (Monday, November 27). Let’s give you a brief look at the timeline for hiring a new defensive coordinator.
With coaches getting fired on Saturday and early Sunday, and with new movements such as Jonathan Smith going to Michigan State this past Saturday, the men on the open market need to make choices quickly, but they also need at least 24 hours to talk things over with their wives and kids. Quick action is needed, but everyone involved — schools and candidates alike — deserves a little bit of time to ultimately arrive at a decision. USC should also interview several candidates so that it can compare notes and gather information, unless its top target is immediately sold on coming to Los Angeles. If Jim Leonhard does get interviewed and he knocks it out of the park, the Trojans should offer him the store and end the search right there. If that dream scenario doesn’t happen, however, USC needs to talk to other candidates and build its backup plans, plural. Coaches might need time to think about their decision. Follow-up conversations might be needed.
The timeline is this: USC, if it can’t land its grand-slam hire right away, needs 48 hours to do a thorough search and make the right presentation to a field of candidates.
When does USC really, really need to hire its coordinator? Obviously before the December 4 portal opening date. Realistically, the hire needs to come at least three or four days before that date so that portal prospects have time to include USC on their list of desirable programs.
Any other details we need to know? Yes. The other really important detail is that the coach needs to be on board at USC before Friday’s Pac-12 Championship Game between Oregon and Washington. Lincoln Riley knows Oregon and Washington are joining USC in the Big Ten. It would be really important for the new coordinator to be in the fold at USC before kickoff, so that he can get to work studying the Ducks and Huskies’ offenses and beginning the process of how to stop them in the future.
So: USC really needs to wrap this up by Thursday, November 30 (arriving at a deal) and have the press conference no later than early Friday afternoon on December 1, so that the new employee can put on a USC hat and then watch Oregon-Washington as Lincoln Riley’s new defensive tactician. If this search bleeds into the weekend and brushes up against the conference championship games, USC won’t get the media attention needed to fully connect with portal prospects and recruits. The Trojans need to hit the 24-7 news cycle before the big weekend games with College Football Playoff ramifications.
The hire doesn’t have to be done by Tuesday or early Wednesday, but the process does need to move along and be done by Thursday if the Trojans are going to derive a maximum initial benefit from the hire.
Stay with us for more coverage of this search as it hits its final, crucial stages.
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