{"id":416308,"date":"2026-01-19T06:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T06:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/416308\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T06:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T06:39:07","slug":"usc-in-contact-with-gary-patterson-about-open-defensive-coordinator-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/416308\/","title":{"rendered":"USC in contact with Gary Patterson about open defensive coordinator job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/usc-trojans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USC<\/a> and former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/tcu-horned-frogs\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">TCU<\/a> head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/gary-patterson-131987\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gary Patterson<\/a> have been in contact regarding the Trojans\u2019 open defensive coordinator role, sources tell On3\u2019s Chris Low, Brett McMurphy and Pete Nakos. He was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/news\/college-football-hall-of-fame-2025-class-featuring-nick-saban-more\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">voted<\/a> to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last week. <\/p>\n<p>Patterson is TCU\u2019s winningest coach in program history and was voted into the Hall of Fame on his first ballot. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/lincoln-riley-134569\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lincoln Riley<\/a> is in search of a new defensive coordinator following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/danton-lynn-27367\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">D\u2019Anton Lynn\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/On3sports\/status\/2005691897759543417\" rel=\"nofollow\">departure<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/penn-state-nittany-lions\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Penn State<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Patterson was a defensive coordinator before 21-year tenure as TCU\u2019s head coach. Following his 2021 departure from TCU, he\u2019s served in off-field roles with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/texas-longhorns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas<\/a> and, most recently, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/baylor-bears\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Baylor<\/a>. As the Horned Frogs\u2019 head coach, he compiled a 181-79 career record, leading the program from Conference USA to the Mountain West and then to the Big 12.<\/p>\n<p>Gary Patterson and Lincoln Riley have a relationship from their time as Big 12 head coaches and are good friends. A two-time AP Coach of the Year, Patterson combined for 11 final AP Top 25 rankings at TCU, including seven top 10 finishes, a No. 2 ranking in 2010 and a No. 3 ranking in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Riley finished his fourth season at USC with a 9-4 mark. Lynn reinvented the Trojans\u2019 defense in two seasons. In Lynn\u2019s first season at USC, he led a massive one-season defensive turnaround.\u00a0USC held opponents to an average of just 24.1 points per game, improving from 34.4 in 2023.\u00a0The\u00a0Trojans finished the 2024 season ranked No. 21 in the nation and No. 2 in the Big Ten Conference in third-down conversion percentage defense (0.335), compared to ranking No. 106 (0.436) in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USC and former TCU head coach Gary Patterson have been in contact regarding the Trojans\u2019 open defensive coordinator&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,94244,159791,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-416308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-gary-patterson","10":"tag-lincoln-riley-02-muleshoe","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-ncaafootball","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}