Special thanks to Alicia de Artola Castillo of Reign of Troy for joining me to discuss USC’s roster on this week’s podcast:
This will be the sixteenth film study article I’ve written for this site on the USC Trojans since 2019 – eight Summer roster dives, four in-season previews, and four transfer evaluations. I’ve spoken to my friend Alicia about every one of them, and in our conversations over the years we’ve developed several overarching observations about program management, playcalling, and individual
position units (or as we referred to it on this week’s podcast, subplots on a long-running telenovella).
While each are important in their own way, we discussed three major issues as key to why, despite their natural advantages, USC has missed the playoffs so far under Coach Riley, but are turning around in 2026:
- Misplaced recruiting priorities and resources
- Pursuing a transfer-based offensive line
- Underperforming then replacement-value DCs
As Alicia noted, given Riley’s offensive prowess and the program’s high floor of skill talent, any one of these problems might have been survivable in the four-team playoff era and two might have been in the twelve-team era, but all three combined have been fatal. However, recent changes within the program in NIL resource allocation have resulted in a top recruiting class for 2026, they’ve made a radical turnaround in committing to homegrown linemen, and this season they’ve hired (in my opinion) a future hall-of-fame coach in DC Patterson.
We discussed at length on the podcast why USC will probably be stronger in its fundamental metrics and deep progress indicators this Fall, but it may not be until next year that the Trojans see the full benefits of these changes. For one thing, they’re at a schematic crossroads on offense – almost by accident, Riley found more success by getting away from his unique power-RPO scheme last year, which demands quite a reckoning.
For another, the schedule — despite not playing Notre Dame for only the third time in the last 80 years, with the last two misses owing to the global covid pandemic and World War II — has overall gotten much tougher as they’ll play Ohio State and Indiana for the first time since joining the conference, Penn State and UCLA have upgraded their coaching staffs, and in general the defenses they’ll face are more sophisticated.
It’s also simply the case that these are long-term investments which will probably take the course of a year’s worth of installation and acclimation, especially given the mixed state of the 2025 roster and attrition from it for happy and unhappy reasons. Tracking how each unit is dealing with these changes and how likely they are to be immediately ready with playable depth will take up the bulk of this article.
Offense
Each of the changes to the passing offense going from 2024 to the 2025 version of Coach Riley’s offense — most of which were predicted in last year’s preview, with one major exception — paid off. Bringing in #14 QB Maiava and starting him in the last four games of the 2024 season to get him a jump on 2025 was valuable as he ran the offense more effectively than his predecessor, finishing the year with a 157.8 NCAA passer rating which is a little less than a standard deviation above FBS median. Maiava’s greater mobility was an asset both in the RPO game — on 30 meaningful non-scramble carries, he had a 70% success rate and 6.5 adjusted YPC, making him the best per-carry back on the team — and in escaping pocket pressure to minimize negative plays.
The two most significant downsides to Maiava’s game in 2025 were both pretty manageable: first, in watching tape and confirmed with pace-of-play regression, he went through predictable periods of frustration and forcing the ball into traffic which tends to result in an interception about once a game (Alicia called them “QB psychosis”), but he seemed to flush it quickly and it didn’t recur in the same game. Second, when he broke the pocket under pressure he very rarely picked up gains with his legs, instead keeping his eyes downfield for a throw, but also very rarely actually completed one for anything close to what he would have gotten if pressure hadn’t gotten through – that is, defensive pressure was almost always an effective way to keep the offense in neutral, if not make it go backwards.
I expect Maiava to continue to mature in his redshirt senior season in 2026; on my tally sheet the arc of his QB error rate progress is on-model for about a 170 passer rating finish to his career … though it should be said that many of the factors that could derail this are outside of his control. Alicia and I are both expecting better protection from growth and better depth on the offensive line, for the NFL wide receivers to be replaced smoothly from a bumper crop of promising recruits, and for Coach Riley to find adequate schematic workarounds for both the big question mark at tight end and the dilemma of returning to the power-RPO or sticking to the simplified shotgun spread he used much more frequently in 2025. If any of those things don’t happen … well, it wouldn’t be the first time expectations were missed in Heritage Hall.
Freshman QB Husan Longstreet has transferred out, while senior and former King County All-Star #7 QB S. Huard remains as a backup. Regrettably, Alicia told me that Huard is not going to go back to throw the ball, as mid 4-star prep recruit #15 QB J. Williams will almost certainly be the primary backup inserted in any situation in which Maiava is unavailable (with the possible exception of the very first week). She told me Williams chased Longstreet out of the room because he’s even more ready to play straight out of high school, is more mobile than and has trivialized the passing gap with Huard, and is clearly the future when Maiava leaves at the end of this year.
Running Backs
Riley’s astonishing hot streak of transfer running backs continued in 2025 with New Mexico redshirt senior Eli Sanders and Juco #2 RB W. Jordan, who each posted about 60% per-carry success rates and over 5.9 adjusted YPC. Unfortunately, both were injured in the week 7 game against Michigan and played less than half of the competitive season.
Of the two true freshmen depth options then on the roster, one was still dealing with a high school injury and not available, #27 RB Wormley, and the other was redshirting and would ultimately transfer out, Harry Dalton. A sophomore short-yardage specialist was available, Bryan Jackson, but it became clear he couldn’t sustain an every-down load (Jackson also transferred out, though he soldiered through the rivalry win over the Bruins). Remarkably, Riley’s solution was to redesign the rushing offense to suit former walk-on #8 RB Ki. Miller with almost exclusively outside zone runs — previously not featured often in the four and a half years I’ve been charting his teams — which most Big Ten defenses had a very hard time figuring out.
Despite a banged-up offensive line, a highly predictable run scheme to the same direction every time (not that this seemed to occur to the balance of conference DCs), and not much of an ability to break tackles for extra yardage, Miller finished his redshirt freshman year with an impressive 5.1 adjusted YPC. However, the lack of any inside run game throughout the year or YAC from Miller kept his per-carry success rate underwater at 47.5%.
Jordan and Miller both return, and should be the one-two punch for the room. Jordan should resume being a highly effective starter; I tend to think that Miller’s success was something of a magic trick that more sophisticated defenses would solve though Alicia noted he has room to develop as a redshirt sophomore. With a healthy Wormley and two mid 4-star prep recruits whom Alicia said the program is looking to put in the mix right away, #22 RB Alston and #6 RB Redeaux, the Trojans have enough bites at the apple to find a quality backup and possibly even a challenger to Miller for the RB2 spot.
Tight Ends
The Trojans’ tight end for five years — including a few games of his freshman season while redshirting in 2021 under the previous staff — has been Lake McRee, and for that same amount of time Alicia and I have been discussing the mismatch between his skillset and what USC’s offense needs from a receiving tight end. Indeed I think much of the reason that Riley’s power-RPO wasn’t as successful in LA as it was in Norman was Riley trying to fit the square peg of the sideline TE wheel (to open the fieldside QB keep) options in the round hole of McRee’s athleticism.
In changing up the passing patterns to just send the tight ends downfield on seam routes in 2025, as well as a second tight end in sophomore Walker Lyons coming online with a far better vertical and eight percentage points better of a per-target succes rate, Riley got substantially more production out of this unit than he ever had at USC, although at the cost of making the pattern much more predictable. (I unpacked this more in my Fall 2025 film study of the Trojans linked above, essentially by removing the schematic tension of the RPO, Riley was left with only the athletic tension of coverage matchups his targets had to, and mostly did, win on their own.)
McRee signed a UDFA with the Steelers, Lyons transferred out along with his brother Ryder, a quarterback who was committed to USC, to go to BYU. A blueship freshman who didn’t play in two years, Joey Olsen, also transferred out.
The room has six bodies in it to find the two playable tight ends Riley has typically preferred (he’s never played four wide, and more than a third of reps I’ve charted over five years have been in 12-personnel). I would usually say that’s an appropriate ratio, but I’m not so sure here. #24 TE Tabarracci is a converted linebacker who’s never seriously played and is severely undersized, #19 TE Bowman and #88 TE Tupou are both freshmen and #23 TE Matthews is a redshirt sophomore who missed last season with injury so none has college experience.
#84 TE Ashcraft was a starter in 2024 at Wisconsin and could be an adequate blocker, but missed almost all of 2025 with an injury and was still hurt through Spring practices (as was Matthews). #87 TE Jefferson has starting experience at the Juco level, but is the same slimmer build as Bowman and probably suited for the Y-receiver instead of in-line blocking role that Ashcraft, Matthews, or Tupou might fill.
There’s certainly a rosy scenario where Bowman — whom Alicia credited as possibly the most talented player on the roster — is playable right away with no availability issues, and one of the blocking-sized tight ends is healthy and playable all year. But it’s a constrained set of options and only a single path to get back to the same production they were generating last year – this’ll require some luck.
Wide Receivers
Beyond the passing pattern, the other major change to the offensive approach in 2025 compared to 2024 and earlier seasons was severely restricting the wideout rotation – only established producers Ja’Kobi Lane and Makai Lemon, plus then-true freshman #16 WR Hines, saw the field during the vast majority of meaningful play, and the only minor exception was for redshirt senior Division-III transfer Jaden Richardson on a handful of reps.
The three main receivers posted some unbelievable numbers — Lane at 69.2% success and 9.3 YPT, Lemon at 56.4% and 10.3, and Hines at 62.2% and 12.5 — as we discussed on the podcast, my algorithmic modeling suggested they could have been optimized even further as Lemon was about 20% overtargeted and Hines could have taken it up. I agreed with Alicia this indicated that Hines is ready to step forward into a leading role instead of the freshman defenses might have forgotten about.
Lane was drafted in the 3rd round by the Ravens, Lemon in the 1st by the Eagles. Hines returns, though Alicia noted he underwent some sort of medical procedure and missed Spring practices (apparently the program has adopted this vague nomenclature because “a procedure” is all we’d get for anyone). Just about the entire rest of the room has cleared out: Richardson and Auburn transfer Jay Fair graduated; freshman James Johnson was pressed into being a sort of scat back and transferred out, as has redshirt freshman DJ Jordan and Boise State transfer Prince Strachan.
The most obvious candidate to add to the rotation next to Hines is the one transfer, #9 WR Anderson from North Carolina State. He was a mid 4-star in the 2024 cycle and very productive; I was surprised I had to cajole Alicia into even mentioning him. When I asserted that his experience established a floor for a talented but very young room she instantly agreed; I think that might be selling him short but at any rate it would be a high floor.
There’s one returner who’s a bit of an odd man out, #0 WR Z. Williams who transferred in from Utah after getting a few intriguing catches as freshman there but did very little as a sophomore; Alicia seemed to have him lower on her projection list because of that though allowed that being a bit older might give him some advantage.
Two low 4-stars from the 2025 class return without any real play, #18 WR Ison and #10 WR Simms. The rest of the room are six highly rated prep recruits from the 2026 cycle. Alicia’s bet is for the shortest of them, #4 WR Mosley, to win the slot receiver job, which seems like a logical pick supported by lots of camp chatter. With two productive, experienced receivers from the Power conference ranks in pocket, finding one more starter (possibly two, if Alicia’s yawn at Anderson is justified) and a couple playable backups from nine younger talents shouldn’t be a problem at all for this staff.
Offensive Line
USC’s offensive line grades hit their nadir in 2023 when they elected to fight the mountain of accumulated data indicating that each additional starting lineman taken directly from the transfer portal logarithmically damages the entire line’s cohesion. That year the Trojans started three highly rated transfer linemen who nearly got their Heisman-winning QB killed in a 7-5 season and discovered that math is undefeated.
They’ve found religion on the question of homegrown offensive linemen since that point with the zeal of the converted, and over the following three offseasons have purged every transfer from the offensive line unit. In 2024 and 2025 the fundamental offensive line grades have climbed up steadily once injury displacement is controlled for, though this is tricky to document because they haven’t had the depth or experience to gracefully deal with the sheer volume of hard-luck injuries (and in at least one instance, a bungled personnel decision, in my opinion).
In 2026 the line should be able to take a significant step forward, because in addition to returning all their starters and a quality (arguably superior) sixth man, they now have the depth both for some real position battles to make unforced choices and for handling a reasonable amount of hardship with quality, same-position backups instead of disrupting the line and playing guys out of position.
Both tackles, #72 LT Paige and #74 RT Tauanuu, should return to their positions where they’ve now had experience since they were each freshmen (and with any luck, Paige will finally stay healthy all season).
#73 OL Raymond, who started out last year at LG but wound up playing most of the year at LT, now enjoys enough depth in the room at both tackle and guard that he can move inside to center. Doing so would let them sit down #67 OL O’Connor, the former walk-on who’d stepped in commendably for the 2024 bowl game and held the job (as long as he wasn’t hurt, which was for much of 2025) ever since, but as Alicia and I discussed, one of the last major problems on the line was the O’Connor just wasn’t up to Big Ten competition, and the guy who he beat out but then had to fill in for him when he was hurt, the Syracuse transfer J’Onre Reed, was shockingly worse. So Raymond’s move over and the depth allowing it to happen is critical to the line moving forward.
The guard backup situation is very strong, so much so that Alicia and I agreed there should be competitions at both left and right so that they could potentially sit down #77 RG Noa, who’s been the starting RG for two years and grades out very poorly. Their returning sixth man, former walk-on (and brother to the running back, the source of some humor on the podcast) #60 OL Ka. Miller graded out much better and should be a contender for a starting job by all rights. #68 OL Treter played in garbage time all year and started at LG in the bowl game due to the line having to be shuffled again, and Alicia said that of the seven (!) prep recruits, the smartest money of any of them getting a starting job would be #66 OL Kolojay at guard. However she also said that the staff can’t bring themselves to quit Noa, for reasons that defy comprehension.
Tackles have plenty of options for depth, enough that I don’t think they’ll abandon the plan and start shuffling unproductively, but there’s a bit more of a concern for playability than at guard because it’s all true or redshirt freshmen with no meaningful playing time yet.
Defense
Unlike the offense, which made no staff changes this offseason, the defense has some interesting moves and retentions. DC Patterson spent more than 20 years at TCU and literally has a statue outside the stadium, and ran a fascinating split-field 4-2-5 I studied in back-to-back seasons a decade ago, though after a near-constant string of top-30 defenses in that time it cratered to 122nd in F+ advanced statistics in 2021, he was summarily fired and hasn’t coached since.
DL coach Eric Henderson has moved on, but his assistant DL coach Jones has been promoted to replace him and DE coach Nua has kept the same job going back to when he was working with Alex Grinch in 2022. LB coach Ekeler, who has been at nine different schools in the same position for about two years a pop since 2008, has replaced 20-year NFL veteran and two-time Super Bowl champ Rob Ryan as the latest to stare into the maddening abyss of USC’s linebacker unit. CB coach Reed remains in place, while at safeties Doug Belk is out and DB coach Gonzales has been added from Patterson’s former TCU staff.
When Grinch was fired and replaced with D’Anton Lynn for the 2024 season, the observation Alicia and I made at the time was that Grinch had so actively suppressed USC’s defensive performance below its baseline talent — analytically, a far more rare event than fans tend to think, most ineffective coordinators just fail to add anything — that Lynn would be inevitably celebrated just for not being Grinch.
Revisiting the question after the glow had worn off, it seemed clear that while Lynn was competent enough in getting everybody to pull in the same direction and putting the bodies in the right spots, there wasn’t much more than baseline performance and plenty to criticize schematically and in personnel management. Indeed the most salient was exactly what we’d observed about his 2023 UCLA defense’s dependence on a lucky confluence of unexpected NFL edge rushers and what would happen if those didn’t materialize for USC.
I think Patterson has the ability to actually be a value-added coordinator, something that I had serious doubts about for Lynn, though how quickly that’ll come to be and if there’s some catching up to do with the modern landscape from his time off remains to be seen.
A bigger question, to me, is whether the 2026 roster that Patterson has inherited and hasn’t really been overhauled — tweaked with a few strategic transfers, yes, as well as counting on some talented freshmen, but very far from a Coach Prime-style torch-to-the-ground — can take a big step in 2026 with ostensibly better management alone. I think this looks more like accepting the developmental pipeline and installing systems for incremental progress, and setting up for a 2027 push, rather than immediate big changes.
Defensive Tackles
Up through the 2022 season, USC was continuing to enjoy NFL defensive linemen on a regular basis: Stevie Tu’ikolovatu and Rasheem Green, Jay Tufele and Drake Jackson, Marlon and Tuli Tuipulotu. By 2023, the Trojans had stopped producing their own and were taking them as transfers: Solomon Byrd from Wyoming, Romello Height from Auburn, Bear Alexander from Georgia. Those three were on the 2023 defense together, often fighting against rather than with their teammates to accomplish anything, and had all left Henderson and Nua’s line soon after.
Efforts to construct a competitive defensive line since then have been fitful, but are looking up in 2026 and beyond. At tackle, I think they’re about halfway there – two appropriately sized and experienced starters for a standard four-man rotation in #97 DT Abisiri and Michigan State transfer #91 DT VanSumeren (the latter’s tape started out rocky and injury-plagued, but by last year had matured into their most valuable returner).
I think Alicia was more sanguine than I am about the other half of the rotation, which needs to be just as solid to avoid fatigue issues (and that’s not even considering potential injuries). The options are #99 DT Jarrett, who we discussed last year as a project when he came in from Georgia as he was carrying a lot of bad weight, but I don’t think he’s any closer now than he was then as he got virtually no meaningful reps, has been injured, and added another 15 lbs, plus three 2025 recruits and five 2026 recruits.
The 2025 player with the most reps is #4 DT Stewart, a former 5-star but who’s a high-cut 6’5” and supposed to be playing end, and had a scandalous 9% grade on my tally sheet last year – he’s just too long with the wrong center of gravity for the position, and spent virtually every rep being knocked on his rear end. Alicia told me that after getting his weight up to 290 lbs this offseason the program has committed to keeping him at tackle rather than yo-yo his weight, which I think has some sense to it, but I have a hard time imagining getting much productive playability outside very situational use.
#98 DT Jacobsen is a mid 3-star who redshirted and got essentially zero play. #88 DT Boucard is a decent candidate, he’s a high 3-star with an appropriate body type, and got a chunk of meaningful play and more garbage time last year, but that’s just one candidate when they’d need more like six for a safe option-to-hit ratio.
A couple of the prep recruits are very promising — Alicia specifically mentioned the two highest rated, #52 DT Topui and #45 DT Winfield — and with five of them in the room and the state of the rest of it I expect several to get more than just garbage time play. That should pay off for the future, so I agreed with Alicia about this unit being on the right track. But betting on true freshman at DT for serious rotational play in the Big Ten, no matter how highly rated, is long odds.
Defensive Ends
The 2025 defensive end rotation was the same as the 2024 rotation, except that when Jamil Muhammad graduated (he’s made a couple of NFL practice squads since) from 2024’s normal four-man rotation of Muhammad, Anthony Lucas, #1 DE Crawford (then using the name Fountain), and #10 DE Shelby they just … didn’t replace Muhammad at all. This was what was so baffling about putting Stewart in the DT unit, it seemed like there was a hole in the edge rotation and he was unproductive on the interior.
Furthermore, the rep count was disconnected to the ends’ effectiveness. Lucas’ havoc generation has consistently lagged his teammates and yet has always had prime playing time, while Shelby had over double Lucas’ havoc rate yet played on eleven percent fewer reps. A rational distribution would have had Crawford and Shelby getting about 70% of reps, while Lucas and a fourth end (Stewart ideally, but anyone really would have done, it just would have been for fatigue relief) would have gotten the remaining 30%.
Lucas signed a UDFA with the Lions, and one of the two 2025 recruits, Gus Cordova, transferred out without any meaningful play. Crawford and Shelby return, as does the other 2025 recruit, mid 3-star #95 Ramos, who got a few garbage time reps and preserved his redshirt.
They’ve added #18 DE Fisher from Penn State, an end I’ve always liked when I’ve gotten to see him but who has unfortunately battled injuries since the beginning of his college career in 2020. When he was finally healthy last year I thought he should have gotten the full share of starting reps at end and their staff was making a mistake instead having him basically split first-line reps with true freshman “phenom” Chaz Coleman (Penn State fans were angry at me for this suggestion at the time, but well, Penn State fans were wrong about a lot of things last year).
Assuming that Patterson pulls rank on Nua and insists on a proper four-man rotation at end, the options are Ramos or one of the very highly rated prep recruits. Alicia singled out the 5-star #94 DE L. Wafle, though when I asked if she’d heard anything particularly noteworthy about him from Spring training she demurred.
I’ve liked Crawford and Shelby contra Lucas for a long time but they’ve never been the massive havoc generators that the defense required, and sadly I’m always going to have some lingering worries about Fisher taking another injury. With no options but freshmen to complete the rotation and provide depth, there are some significant questions here about whether they’ll be able to do anything more than hold steady at modest production off the edge while getting set up for 2027. There’s a chance at a huge 2026 breakthrough, but it’s going to require several things all going their way.
Linebackers
This unit has been the greatest source of confusion for Alicia and I since this series began, as I don’t think USC has fielded a pair of very high quality off-ball linebackers at the same time since 2018 with Cameron Smith and John Houston. That time has seen four DCs, six LB coaches, and no shortage of talent and bodies for the unit – we’ve both consistently agreed that the resources and staff are entirely appropriate, some of the coaches are real luminaries. But between hesitant, technically unsound play, poor assignment discipline and tackling form, frequent injuries to the occasional actual quality backer who transfers in, and disturbing lack of physicality from everyone else for the better part of a decade, we’re each at our wits’ end. Supernatural explanations begin to appeal.
I can say from my previous film study of Patterson’s defenses that while there are central performance demands on the position as the fulcrum of the defense as with any 4-2-5, Patterson struck me as flexible and willing to work with whatever skillset his best available talent had. In 2014 his starting backers played like downhill attackers, joining the line to constantly crash the backfield and the split-field DBs backed way out, then when they both left, the defense re-arranged in 2015 to read-and-react backers with the strong safety in the box.
The Trojans return one of the two starting safeties, #8 LB Stephens, as Eric Gentry signed a UDFA with the Bengals. Stephens had the second lowest grades on my tally sheet besides Stewart, and Alicia for two consecutive podcasts has been merciless in her comments on Stephens’ play. Surprisingly, the third backer then-redshirt freshman #15 LB Walker whom we barely even discussed last Summer. Walker got ample play as the SAM last year as injuries and an odd shuffling among the safeties before they had a key backup safety return from an early injury (more on that later) resulted in the defense playing a lot more 4-3 in the middle of the season than they otherwise might.
I think the plan was to play a converted defensive back, Anthony Beavers, next to Gentry, but he got hurt almost immediately and missed the entire season. He must have won a medical redshirt application as he’s transferred out. Walker evidently beat out both the true freshmen, mid 4-star Matai Tagoa’i
and mid 3-star AJ Tuitele, as well as the Penn State transfer #14 LB Robinson and sophomore #26 LB Newby (I continue to be baffled about why Newby is still on the team, he came in with the 2024 cycle as a defensive end, never played, was the only non-starter to survive last offseason’s purge of DEs, switched to LB for no apparent reason, still hasn’t played, and survived another purge of LBs this offseason).
Tagoa’i and Tuitele transferred out. Robinson and Newby return, but I have no confidence they’ll beat Stephenson or Walker this time when they couldn’t before. They’ve added #17 LB D. Bryant from UW, who’s 5’11” if he’s standing on an encyclopedia and was most notable for getting pasted a lot and cooked by Rutgers. Alicia and I agreed they should just play the three true freshmen, they’re more talented than the returners and they’ve had the least time for whatever curse afflicts USC linebackers to settle in.
Secondary
Injuries affected the corners and safeties both, but in different ways. At corner, the transfer from UCF whom CB coach Reed (eventually) convinced to follow him to USC, #27 CB C. Johnson was hurt very early and missed almost all of the season. Another transfer I think they’d planned on making a starter, DJ Harvey from San Jose St, turned out to be unplayable and when he took an injury he was just benched for good. So senior DeCarlos Nicholson and then-redshirt freshman #25 CB M. Williams took almost all of the remaining meaningful reps.
Nicholson signed a UDFA with the Browns, Harvey graduated, and a couple of backups who got a bit of meaningful play, Braylon Conley and Kevin Longstreet (brother of the QB) transferred out. That left Williams not only as the only returning starter but only returning corner with any significant meaningful play.
But Alicia and I agreed that doesn’t guarantee Williams a starting job in 2026, since his play didn’t have it locked down and they may have more appetizing players coming online. Some of the freshmen are pretty intriguing here – Alicia noted prep recruits #2 CB Hill and #19 CB Lockhart as well as redshirt freshman #21 CB Sermons, all mid-to-high 4-stars. She also said that if either or both of Johnson or Iowa State transfer #0 CB J. Williams are healthy then they should be penciled in as starters, but both missed most of last year and this Spring with injuries.
So I think the corner position is in limbo and upside down until we get some clarity in the Fall. The depth and future for the position looks brighter with plenty of talented freshmen, six in total plus a developmental transfer who’s the brother of a safety starter. But the options for the actual 2026 starters are murky, as the options are a previous starter who wasn’t the first choice, some guys who’ve been out of action for a long time now, and total inexperience behind them as a backstop.
The safety positions handled late-season adversity admirably – NFL-bound starters Bishop Fitzgerald and Kamari Ramsey were both hurt and out for the season during the Iowa game in week 12, but they handled the rest of that game and some more tough opponents well by moving #6 DB Pierce over a spot, using Notre Dame transfer #9 DB Urlacher as a high safety instead of a thumper as I’d initially thought, and deploying then-true freshman (finally available after rehabing a Fall camp injury) at nickel.
All three of those return, and I believe will now have starting jobs with Fitzgerald signing a UDFA with the Titans and Ramsey drafted in the 5th by the Texans. I also think it’s as simple as plugging them in where they were previously, as I think this’ll work best with my understanding of Patterson’s split backfield – Graham at nickel, Urlacher at free safety, Pierce at strong safety (this was one of two potential solutions Alicia had concluded as well).
However, I think they’ve used up last year’s backups and not really replaced them, so I don’t think they have a good depth situation or viable alternatives. Neither of the prep recruits seem like good candidates for early play, which Alicia agreed with, and when Ramsey was out earlier in the season against Illinois they’d put in #23 DB Reddick, but that was the last time he played – on subsequent absences the staff changed their minds about Reddick and kept him on the bench. They’ve also been very clear, despite multiple opportunities for two straight years, that they’d rather lose a limb than play the last two members of the unit, #30 DB Gallegos and #38 DB Rubin.
Alicia proposed one alternative solution: move Graham to the other safety spot alongside Pierce, sit Urlacher, and play redshirt senior #16 CB P. Brown at nickel. I think that’s viable logical supposition from first principles and I don’t doubt at all Alicia’s factual representation of the program’s claims regarding Brown’s progress, how close he was to being the starting nickel last year, or that he was only an injury away from finally playing in 2025. It’s just that she might as well be reporting on Harvey the Rabbit. It’s been five years and I’ve never seen Brown play a second of football, and at this point I’m disinclined to believe it until it happens.
