Monte Kiffin's History Suggests Continued Struggles for the USC Defense

Conventional wisdom regarding the USC Trojans coming into the 2010 college football season was new head coach Lane Kiffin would ride the coattails of his father, assistant head coach for defense Monte Kiffin, and defensive coordinator/defensive line coach Ed Orgeron to a successful season.

A common thread among college football pundits was that Lane Kiffin’s resume did not earn himself such a heralded position, but that he would look reasonably good as a coach due to what his father and Coach O would bring to the table.

As ESPN’s Pat Forde, not a fan of USC or Lane Kiffin wrote, “[he] was born on third base and acts as if he hit a triple.”

Following the Trojans' 49-36 victory over Hawaii last Thursday night, it appears as if conventional wisdom can be shown the door.

After all, USC’s offense was explosive, well-prepared, and very balanced.

The defense? Not so much.

Unfortunately for USC, history suggests that Hawaii’s offensive performance against the Trojans will not be an aberration.

Nearly every Trojan fan is well aware of the USC’s struggles with mobile quarterbacks and spread offenses. The list of mobile signal callers who have tormented USC is well-know. Ell Roberson, Dennis Dixon, Jeremiah Masoli, and of course Vince Young are only the ones that immediately stand out.

Many USC fans will argue that those performances happened in the Pete Carroll era and are thus not applicable to the 2010 squad. After all, this USC team’s defense is being run by the famed architect of the Tampa-2 defense and maybe the best defensive line coach of the past 20 years.

What they are forgetting, however, is Pete Carroll’s scheme is identical to Monte Kiffin’s. And the defensive strategy is not changing anytime soon.

Monte Kiffin’s resume leaves much uncertainty as to his ability to take on spread offenses with mobile quarterbacks. For one, Kiffin never faced these types of offenses in the NFL during all of his years with the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Even more troubling for Trojan fans is the defensive performance of Monte Kiffin’s unit at Tennessee last season against the spread. The Volunteer defense faced four teams that ran a variation of the spread attack: Florida, Auburn, Mississippi, and Virginia Tech.

The results of those four games are disturbing.

While Tennessee held Tim Tebow and Florida to 23 points, the Volunteers did not win a single one of those games, giving up 26 points to Auburn, a whopping 42 points to Ole Miss, and 37 points to Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl with weeks to prepare.

Something needs to change schematically for the Trojans to find success defensively. Having middle linebackers in pass coverage 40 yards down the deep middle of the field while allowing fleet-footed quarterbacks freedom to scamper is clearly not getting it done.

So what will?

The blueprint is out there for how to defeat the spread. Ohio State bottled up the vaunted Oregon offensive attack by dedicating a defender, or “spy”, to attack Masoli on nearly every play last year, whether he kept the ball or not.

A “spy” is something Carroll steadfastly refused to use and it appears Monte Kiffin will also refuse.

Boise State also demonstrated an ability to stop the spread, both in its win over the Ducks last year and in its season-opening win over Virginia Tech and its senior quarterback Tyrod Taylor. They used many of the same tactics Ohio St. would employ against the Ducks.

The adjustment Monte Kiffin needs to make is going with more of a 4-2-5 alignment instead of his preferred 4-3. This would allow him the ability to blitz from a variety of positions on the field as well as assign one of the five defensive backs the sole responsibility of the opposing quarterback.

Hmmm. Maybe a role for Allen Bradford on the defensive side of the ball?

Regardless of whether Kiffin/Orgeron choose this, another scheme, or keeping with the Tampa-2, changes need to be made or the spread teams (or teams that like to spread the field—there is a difference) of the Pac-10, such as Oregon, Arizona, Arizona State, or heck, maybe even UCLA, could pose major problems down the road for the Trojans.

Upcoming games against Virginia, Minnesota, and Washington St. may lead to a false sense of defensive stability for the Trojans. Monte Kiffin cannot allow himself to think that success against those three teams means USC has overcome the defensive woes that they showed against Hawaii.

What does Lane Kiffin do if his offense has great success this year but his father’s defense is unable to slow down teams that spread the field?

I would anticipate that Monte Kiffin may decide to retire. But then where does Lane turn?

Maybe it would be time to pluck another coach from Tennessee, the defensive coordinator who was the architect of the brilliant Boise St. defense, Volunteer defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox.

My thoughts on college football and other random thoughts from the sports world can be followed on Twitter at @plh55.