\u201cHe wasn\u2019t going to jump back into this for anything,\u201d Riley said Wednesday. \u201cIt had to be the right opportunity, the right kind of place, the right kind of setting. I know he knows and believe he\u2019s found that.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one is more invested in that than USC\u2019s head coach. Whether Patterson turns out to be the right fit at the right time for the Trojans may ultimately determine the trajectory of Riley\u2019s future with the program. Patterson will be Riley\u2019s third defensive coordinator in five seasons at USC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s an unbelievable hire by Lincoln,\u201d said David Bailiff, who worked with Patterson at New Mexico and TCU. \u201cFor him not to be intimidated with Gary\u2019s background, that all he wants to do is get USC better \u2014 a lot of coaches probably wouldn\u2019t hire Gary because he\u2019s been a head coach for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Patterson, who never beat Riley in seven meetings while at TCU, it was a particularly ideal partnership.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time that I was ever part of a team that had a great offense and scored a lot of points, we won a lot of ball games,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n
Patterson, however, hasn\u2019t been a full-time assistant since the turn of the 21st century. He last served as defensive coordinator under Dennis Franchione, who brought Patterson with him from New Mexico to TCU in 1998. He was promoted to head coach in 2000, when Franchione left for Alabama. A week later, across the country, USC hired Pete Carroll<\/a>.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how deeply entrenched Patterson was for more than two decades at TCU, where his tenure, by any measure, was a staggering success. Over 22 seasons, Patterson led the Horned Frogs to 181 wins and six conference titles. Throughout, defense remained his calling card. Five different times during his tenure, TCU finished No. 1 in the nation in yards allowed, as Big 12 offenses struggled for years to adjust to his multifaceted 4-2-5 scheme.<\/p>\n But by 2021, while Patterson\u2019s TCU defense had largely remained strong, the luster of his long tenure in Fort Worth had faded. The bottom fell out that fall, as the Horned Frogs started the season 3-5. Informed that he wouldn\u2019t be back the following season, Patterson instead resigned with four games left.<\/p>\n Now he returns not as a head coach, but as a coordinator, a step down that Patterson seemed just fine with when asked Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it, to be honest with you,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n The entire landscape of college football has also been turned on its head since Patterson last coached, with the advent of revenue sharing and the rise of the transfer portal. But he didn\u2019t seem all that concerned by those changes Wednesday. Mostly because he doesn\u2019t expect it to affect what USC is asking him to do.<\/p>\n Trojans fans hope Gary Patterson\u2019s hire leads to more of this, when three USC players brought down a Northwestern running back last season. <\/p>\n (Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cMy job is defense,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cI don\u2019t deal with NIL. I don\u2019t deal with all those different things.\u201d<\/p>\n His reputation as a mastermind on the defense certainly precedes him, and at USC, that\u2019s where he\u2019ll be needed most. Bailiff, who worked with Patterson at New Mexico and served as his first defensive coordinator at TCU, said that hisability to diagnose what a defense needs is \u201csuperior from any person I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Trojans](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769681053_481_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n