Here's the complete transcript from Alex Grinch's comments on Trojans Live last night:
Was it Lincoln Riley, was it USC -- what was ultimately the draw to get you here?
"Well, it's all of the above. You know the history, you know the expectations. This is a job you run to, or you better stay away from. So I was awfully [eager] to be a part of it."
What should we expect from an Alex Grinch defense?
"The calling card has been effort and speed. And one of the things we do from a coaching standpoint is we say, if an individual gives us their max effort and max speed, they're going to have success from an individual standpoint. And obviously the behaviors, the sum total becomes a successful defense. When we've gotten it right, we've been just that. And when we've gotten it wrong, we've had some tough Saturdays. We stick to that philosophy of sound, simple, repeatable, adaptable -- not the group that kind of draws stuff in the dirt each week -- and put our guys in position to be successful and hopefully let it rip and production can come with it."
This is the third time you've installed this defense -- what is different this time?
"You have to look at it through that lens, and if you just say same as, you're going to miss on something. Obviously, different individuals, different time in college football. As much as things stay the same, things also have a tendency to change over time in terms of what offenses do. But the reality from a defensive standpoint is making sure you put guys in position to be successful. It's kind of a front to back type of operation for us. We expect to have production in our front, so we start there. How can we get our guys to get in the backfield and have production? And when we've gotten it right, once again, we've had a lot of success. I think the confidence just comes with that. You kind of know some of the issues that present themselves early on, you're conscious of the fact, is there any pushback from those individual players, and you have a story behind why we ask them to do certain things at all positions. And you gain confidence from your failures as well. It's not just the good and having a number of players drafted in this defense -- every position's been drafted at this point through a couple different stops and more this year -- so you take a lot of pride in terms of development and I think we've done it at an elite level of those multiple spots. But you also learn from your failures and say, OK, when we got it wrong, why? And you step into a new opportunity with some of that knowledge as well, which if you do it right you gain confidence from and hopefully the players feel that."
Riley's offenses can score quickly, how do you have to play off that defensively?
"Sure, how do we flip that from what could otherwise be a disadvantage if you want to come up with excuses and those things, which we're not in the business of doing. But can you beat USC counting in 3s? Presenting it that way. Understanding, OK, there's a pressure, an innate pressure on an offense that we go against, so from that standpoint can we steal possessions. That's the takeaway aspect of things, and that's what we call it. It's turnovers -- that's kind of a passive statement, so we use the term takeaways. We're going to take the ball away from the offense and get it back to ours, which now we're going to increase possessions. Understanding also from a standpoint once again, if you're counting in 3s and 0s and we're stealing a few possessions each week we feel from a success standpoint of that we're going to be on the right side of that more often than not. But the chief thing too is we chose to be defensive coaches, we chose to be defensive players, and so unless we're scoring touchdowns we better prevent them. So to wave the white flag and say it's tough to play defense, that's just not the road we choose to go."
What's the onboarding process for a coach in your scheme?
"You mention those individuals in Coach Odom and Coach Manning, the opportunity in coming out here is you've got to be elite to be with us. That's it. The expectation here is to be one of the top programs in the country, so again, it's the sum total of all our behaviors, including the coaching staff. So that's a high bar. And making sure that we bring the right group of guys, so they were with us, and the individuals you mentioned in Coach Nua, Coach Williams, OK, how do we upgrade. That's our responsibility also, to not fall into the trap as same as. With that, one of the conversations we have is how can you get your players to play with elite effort. Is your calling card as a coach the ability to draw something on the board -- that doesn't make you special. Your ability to tell a 3 technique to play a certain gap, we can get a lot of individuals to do that. Your expertise only works if your players play with, we use the term strain, which implies the extra. Can you get your players to strain for you, and ultimately for us, and obviously for us I'm the top of the flow chart type of thing, so I'm part of that. But making sure those guys have that personality -- can they inspire the players, motivate their players to play at max velocity and do the things we're asking them to do, and all of a sudden the calls get a whole lot better when you do that. And we've got video evidence when guys don't play at elite tempo, they can be in the right gap and it turns out it doesn't really work out too well. And we track that. We have an effort percentage every day. The good plays and the bad plays, and the bad plays are bad effort. It's very difficult to have a bad day if you walk off the practice field in this particular case, but it also applies in the fall -- if you've got 11 guys and all those individuals take the field to play with elite effort, it's going to be really tough to have a bad day. But that's the big thing is making sure those coaches that are on board are on board with that. That our expectation is getting guys to play at an elite level."
Was it Lincoln Riley, was it USC -- what was ultimately the draw to get you here?
"Well, it's all of the above. You know the history, you know the expectations. This is a job you run to, or you better stay away from. So I was awfully [eager] to be a part of it."
What should we expect from an Alex Grinch defense?
"The calling card has been effort and speed. And one of the things we do from a coaching standpoint is we say, if an individual gives us their max effort and max speed, they're going to have success from an individual standpoint. And obviously the behaviors, the sum total becomes a successful defense. When we've gotten it right, we've been just that. And when we've gotten it wrong, we've had some tough Saturdays. We stick to that philosophy of sound, simple, repeatable, adaptable -- not the group that kind of draws stuff in the dirt each week -- and put our guys in position to be successful and hopefully let it rip and production can come with it."
This is the third time you've installed this defense -- what is different this time?
"You have to look at it through that lens, and if you just say same as, you're going to miss on something. Obviously, different individuals, different time in college football. As much as things stay the same, things also have a tendency to change over time in terms of what offenses do. But the reality from a defensive standpoint is making sure you put guys in position to be successful. It's kind of a front to back type of operation for us. We expect to have production in our front, so we start there. How can we get our guys to get in the backfield and have production? And when we've gotten it right, once again, we've had a lot of success. I think the confidence just comes with that. You kind of know some of the issues that present themselves early on, you're conscious of the fact, is there any pushback from those individual players, and you have a story behind why we ask them to do certain things at all positions. And you gain confidence from your failures as well. It's not just the good and having a number of players drafted in this defense -- every position's been drafted at this point through a couple different stops and more this year -- so you take a lot of pride in terms of development and I think we've done it at an elite level of those multiple spots. But you also learn from your failures and say, OK, when we got it wrong, why? And you step into a new opportunity with some of that knowledge as well, which if you do it right you gain confidence from and hopefully the players feel that."
Riley's offenses can score quickly, how do you have to play off that defensively?
"Sure, how do we flip that from what could otherwise be a disadvantage if you want to come up with excuses and those things, which we're not in the business of doing. But can you beat USC counting in 3s? Presenting it that way. Understanding, OK, there's a pressure, an innate pressure on an offense that we go against, so from that standpoint can we steal possessions. That's the takeaway aspect of things, and that's what we call it. It's turnovers -- that's kind of a passive statement, so we use the term takeaways. We're going to take the ball away from the offense and get it back to ours, which now we're going to increase possessions. Understanding also from a standpoint once again, if you're counting in 3s and 0s and we're stealing a few possessions each week we feel from a success standpoint of that we're going to be on the right side of that more often than not. But the chief thing too is we chose to be defensive coaches, we chose to be defensive players, and so unless we're scoring touchdowns we better prevent them. So to wave the white flag and say it's tough to play defense, that's just not the road we choose to go."
What's the onboarding process for a coach in your scheme?
"You mention those individuals in Coach Odom and Coach Manning, the opportunity in coming out here is you've got to be elite to be with us. That's it. The expectation here is to be one of the top programs in the country, so again, it's the sum total of all our behaviors, including the coaching staff. So that's a high bar. And making sure that we bring the right group of guys, so they were with us, and the individuals you mentioned in Coach Nua, Coach Williams, OK, how do we upgrade. That's our responsibility also, to not fall into the trap as same as. With that, one of the conversations we have is how can you get your players to play with elite effort. Is your calling card as a coach the ability to draw something on the board -- that doesn't make you special. Your ability to tell a 3 technique to play a certain gap, we can get a lot of individuals to do that. Your expertise only works if your players play with, we use the term strain, which implies the extra. Can you get your players to strain for you, and ultimately for us, and obviously for us I'm the top of the flow chart type of thing, so I'm part of that. But making sure those guys have that personality -- can they inspire the players, motivate their players to play at max velocity and do the things we're asking them to do, and all of a sudden the calls get a whole lot better when you do that. And we've got video evidence when guys don't play at elite tempo, they can be in the right gap and it turns out it doesn't really work out too well. And we track that. We have an effort percentage every day. The good plays and the bad plays, and the bad plays are bad effort. It's very difficult to have a bad day if you walk off the practice field in this particular case, but it also applies in the fall -- if you've got 11 guys and all those individuals take the field to play with elite effort, it's going to be really tough to have a bad day. But that's the big thing is making sure those coaches that are on board are on board with that. That our expectation is getting guys to play at an elite level."
