On Saturday evening, the USC football team defeated Washington 25-21 at the Coliseum. With the victory, the Trojans improved to 5-1 on the season and 2-1 in Big Ten play.
The game did contain a notable change in strategy from the Trojans. As Scott Schrader of On3 reported, defensive coordinator Gary Patterson, who spent the first five games on the sideline, instead called plays from the coaches box.
Following the game, head coach Lincoln Riley discussed the decision to move Patterson.
“We talked about it a little bit earlier in the week, and I think it's been a good learning experience for us,” Riley said. “Going through some of these first few games, seeing the makeup of the staff, it was a conversation that he and I had on Sunday, and we thought
there were some reasons, just kind of in our operation, that made sense. He knows this defense obviously better than anyone. He used to have a staff at TCU that had little to no turnover, right? And so when you had guys that had been coaching with you for 15, 20 years, like he had in a lot of ways, you might handle that differently. We have a heck of a defensive staff, and I think it's kind of like players, right? You're trying to move the chess pieces to put everybody in the right position to get the best out of them. And I thought our coaches on the field did a great job. I thought Gary called a really good game, and the players responded.”
To an extent, the strategy paid off for USC, as the Trojans’ defense allowed just 21 points after giving up 35 and 42 the two weeks prior. How much of that was from the decision to move Patterson as opposed to Washington’s offense just being bad, however, remains to be seen.
After taking down the Huskies, the Trojans will now hit the road and head to Penn State for the Nittany Lions’ White Out game on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 4:30 p.m. Pacific time/7:30 p.m. Eastern time on NBC.
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Gary Patterson moved from sideline to coaches box for Washington game
