{"id":428058,"date":"2026-08-09T12:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T12:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428058\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T12:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T12:44:09","slug":"uscs-gary-patterson-out-to-prove-college-football-critics-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428058\/","title":{"rendered":"USC’s Gary Patterson out to prove college football critics wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As an aspiring young quarterback at Muleshoe High<\/a> in the early 2000s, Lincoln Riley<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Gary Patterson<\/a> 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\u2019s vaunted TCU defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeedless to say,\u201d Riley told The Oklahoman in 2018, \u201cit didn\u2019t turn out.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a quarter-century after first crossing paths at that camp, it\u2019s now the young quarterback giving the old ball coach a chance to prove himself.<\/p>\n

When USC<\/a> announced it was hiring Patterson as Riley\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s been more than 25 years since Patterson last served as a coordinator.<\/p>\n

Those were fair concerns, considering all that\u2019s 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\u2019t find anyone at USC \u2014 players, coaches or administrators alike \u2014 with an ounce of distress over Patterson\u2019s stamina.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I would have had more reservations had I not known him,\u201d Riley said. \u201cBut that fire still burns very, very hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knocked the guy back,\u201d said safeties coach Paul Gonzales, who coached with Patterson for a decade at TCU. \u201cFor a 60-year old guy, he still got some pop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USC <\/p>\n

USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson watches practice in March.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Riley is betting big on that translating to the Trojans\u2019 defense this fall. Over his four seasons as USC\u2019s coach, there\u2019s no mistaking what\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

At TCU, Patterson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

It was during that time that Riley\u2019s offense went toe-to-toe with Patterson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was never anyone who was more of a pain to gameplan for or try to move the ball against than this guy,\u201d Riley said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d watch whatever college game he wanted, just to stay fresh.<\/p>\n

When he did return to coaching, Patterson didn\u2019t just want to install the same scheme he used at TCU. So he closely studied Ohio State and Indiana\u2019s defenses, which gave up a combined 32 touchdowns last season \u2014 seven fewer than USC\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I did was do football,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s like getting married. I mean, it\u2019s like I got nothing else. I wasn\u2019t doing anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those habits haven\u2019t 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 \u2014 just to beat the traffic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to change things, it\u2019s a full-time job,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cIt\u2019s not one of those things that you do 70 or 80% of your time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also gave him time to get to know his new players, each of whom have been summarily stunned by their veteran coach\u2019s vitality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how old he is, but he\u2018s out there like he\u2019s 30,\u201d linebacker Desman Stephens<\/a> said. \u201cHe\u2018s still being active with us. He\u2019s showing us drills. Like, if he want it done right, he gonna show you the exact way how to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 and why he wasn\u2019t worried about the game passing Patterson by.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was such a hands-on head coach,\u201d Riley said. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t a head coach just kind of doing a practice schedule, doing the speech, getting out early. He didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USC <\/p>\n

USC defensive coordinator Gary Patterson fist bumps linebacker Desman Stephens during practice on Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

He won\u2019t have to do that at USC. And Patterson seems perfectly fine with that.<\/p>\n

But while others still wonder if he can make a successful return to college football, with a scheme that hasn\u2019t been tested since 2021, Patterson is pretty confident his decades of experience count for something, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an advantage for me compared to somebody that\u2019s 30 years old and doesn\u2019t have kids, never been married, doesn\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to grow somebody up and raise a family and do things,\u201d Patterson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is, I think, my 45th season. … \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of guys in this profession of the age where you can go back to all the things that I\u2019ve learned through all the years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As an aspiring young quarterback at Muleshoe High in the early 2000s, Lincoln Riley attended a football camp…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4690,170404,11155,61931,72208,6135,24710,4194,48,52,51,32698,47,50,49,61302,4610,315,3533,1539,72],"class_list":["post-428058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-coach","tag-college-football-critic","tag-defense","tag-defensive-coordinator","tag-gary-patterson","tag-guy","tag-hand","tag-job","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lincoln-riley","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-tcu","tag-thing","tag-time","tag-usc","tag-yard","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}