USC football retains Taylor Mays for 2024 season as defensive analyst
The USC Trojans made some big hires on the defensive side of the ball this offseason. The Trojans substantially revamped their coaching staff heading into the 2024 college football season and the school’s first year of Big Ten Conference competition. Yet, two people of note were retained on this staff. We already knew Shaun Nua had been retained. Now we know that Taylor Mays has been retained, kept on staff as a defensive analyst for 2024, per Shotgun Spratling of 247Sports.
USC needed to add good defensive coaches to replace defensive coordinator Alex Grinch and assistant coach Donte Williams, who coached cornerbacks. There’s no question that USC made a significant upgrade with D’Anton Lynn replacing Grinch and Doug Belk replacing Williams as the main teacher of the secondary. However, even without those quality additions, USC had already improved its staff simply by cutting loose Grinch and Williams.
Taylor Mays was substantially involved in preparing the USC defense for the Holiday Bowl on a skeleton staff. Mays was able to spend a lot of time teaching the players, since he was promoted to interim safeties coach for the game. We all saw the product: Mays got an underperforming secondary to tackle far better than it did in the regular season. The leap in quality was dramatic. USC had already taken a big step forward simply by firing its underperforming coaches and giving Mays more of a role. Now that USC has hired new coaches, Mays is merely an analyst again. However, retaining him means that if any key defensive staffer leaves for a bigger job in 2025, Mays could slide in as a position coach and ascend on the staff.
It seems only a matter of time before Mays gets a job as a secondary coach, then as a defensive coordinator. His star is rising in the coaching community. USC is fortunate to keep him for at least one more year.
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