College Football: USC's Defense Has Chance to Be Special in 2012

USC remains to be one of the surprise teams of the 2011 season. Written off and forgotten about due to NCAA sanctions, the Trojans finished 10-2 with wins over Oregon and Notre Dame and will finish in the top five of the AP rankings.

Now, everyone turns their attention to a quartet of juniors, Matt Kalil, T.J. McDonald, Nick Perry and Matt Barkley. Will they stay or will they go? Kalil and Perry have already announced that they are leaving, so the anticipation turns to Barkley's decision.

Not diminishing the impact that Barkley will have if he returns, or the impact of losing Perry and potentially McDonald, fans should be excited about the defense that is returning next season. Why? Chances are that it is going to be very good.

USC improved greatly over the season this year. The same team that gave up 41 points on 522 yards to Arizona allowed only 17 points on 267 in South Bend three weeks later. They followed that game up with a shutdown of Oregon's offense and a shutout of UCLA.

How did such an improvement occur? For starters, let's examine the play of the three freshman linebackers, Dion Bailey, Hayes Pullard and Lamar Dawson.

Bailey did not play in the opener against Minnesota but eventually built himself into the Pac-12 Freshman of the year. His 81 total tackles tied for the team lead. Pullard also tallied 81 tackles, 12 solos coming against Oregon. Finally, Dawson came on—the latest of the three in place of Chris Galippo—but he made a strong contribution down the stretch.

With these three men back again next year playing as a unit, the future is bright. None of them are freakishly big, but they instead offer speed at the position, something that was lacking with Galippo.

USC will definitely get three of their starting members of the secondary back next year with Nickell Robey, Jawanza Starling and Isaiah Wiley. Robey emerged down the stretch as a big time playmaker, intercepting a pass against Notre Dame and intercepting Andrew Luck for a touchdown in the waning moments against Stanford. If McDonald were to leave, USC would most likely move Tony Burnett or Drew McAlister to the safety position with Starling. Both men have experience already this season.

The unit that will be most hurt is the defensive line. DaJohn Harris and Nick Perry will be gone, leaving Wes Horton and Devon Kennard to pick up the slack. Freshman George Uko was playing well down the stretch and figures to be a starting defensive tackle. The other tackle spot will be up for grabs.

So now we have a clearer view of the team. The Trojans will have all of their linebackers back and three of their secondary members back (four if McDonald returns). They will also have two defensive ends with experience, while needing some players to step up in the middle.

This is all coming off of a team that improved down the stretch. They allowed 34 points in regulation to Stanford, 35 to Oregon, 17 to Washington, 17 to Colorado and zero to UCLA. As a whole, USC gave up 374.8 yards per game and 23.58 points per game, good for a 15.89 yards per point average.

We use yards per point to get a better understanding of how a defense is performing. Defenses want to have a high yards per point average, which would indicate a bend-but-don't-break defense. This means that while the defense may give up plenty of yards, they are keeping opposing teams out of the end zone. Defenses do this by establishing good field position, forcing turnovers and playing good red zone defense, among other things.

So was USC's yards per point ratio good this season? Yes. As you can guess, Alabama and LSU had the highest rates at 21.73 and 29.65 respectively (which are astronomically high), but USC's 15.89 isn't far off from other great defenses. Consider highly-regarded defenses such as Michigan State (15.58) and Wisconsin (17.22) and you'll see that USC ranks between those two in yards per point.

And here's the best part. USC's yards per point should go up next season (i.e. improve). How can USC make this happen?

For one, force more turnovers. USC ranked 92nd in the nation by forcing only 17 turnovers on the season.

Second, get off the field on third down. USC allowed teams to convert 40.12 percent of their third downs, 65th in the nation.

Finally, establish stronger starting field position. USC averaged 64.81 yards per kickoff, but allowed 10 run backs of 30 or more yards, 91st in the nation. While this doesn't fall squarely on the defense's shoulders, it will go a long way in improving yards per point.

With so many players coming back, there's no reason to believe that USC won't improve on all these facets of the game. They could have close to 10 starters back if McDonald returns and all the players made significant strides already this season. If they continue to improve and force more turnovers, then they could be one of the nation's best next season. The writing is already on the wall with their yards per point average. It's set to increase with just a few minor improvements.