USC continues to hire defensive personnel in a weird progression

On Wednesday night, news broke that the USC football team is hiring Mike Ekeler to be its new special teams coach and that secondary coach Doug Belk will not return to USC in 2026.

USC has also hired a new member of its strength and conditioning staff in recent weeks, but has not replaced D’Anton Lynn with a new defensive coordinator.

Why has USC made smaller moves within its staff, but not announced the big move? It’s puzzling many Trojan fans. Let’s talk about it.

USC seems to want to retain most of its defensive staff

There’s good reason for the Trojans to want to keep most of their defensive staff intact: they want to preserve the elite 2026 recruiting class, which committed to play with USC’s position coaches.

But, that could be an obstacle with new defensive coordinator candidates. Most reputable defensive coordinators will want to bring in their own staff of assistant coaches to work with.

Perhaps Belk’s firing is indicative of this attitude

In the aftermath of Belk’s departure from USC, Connor Morrissette of USCfootball.com reported this:

“The expectation is that former TCU head coach Gary Patterson will be hired in the coming days and bring in a new safeties coach,” Morrissette wrote in an article.

It seems that USC is parting ways with Belk as part of the negotiations with Patterson. If that’s the case, USC likely wants to retain ultimate control of who returns to the defensive staff, but agreed to part ways with Belk so that Patterson could hire a new safeties coach, or handle coaching the secondary himself.

That way, while Patterson can’t come in and choose who he wants to fire, he does have some openings to work with to bring on additional staff members.

So, what’s the hold up?

But if that’s the case, and USC is already making concessions for Patterson, why haven’t they announced that he is being hired? Or at least, why hasn’t the news officially broken?

USC doesn’t seem to have a PR reason to keep the hire of Patterson under wraps. Why wouldn’t they want to announce the hiring of a legendary coach who was just elected into the College Football Hall of Fame?

Perhaps there’s still some sort of holdup. If that’s the case, and USC is parting ways with Belk before it knows for sure that Patterson is coming on board, that’s a risky move. Unless USC was planning on parting ways with Belk anyway.

Would USC have fired Belk anyway?

If USC wants to retain the rest of its defensive staff, I don’t see why Doug Belk would be the guy to go. Sure, USC’s secondary struggled quite a bit in 2025, but the safeties that Belk was primarily responsible for tutoring were one of the strong points of that defense. Consensus All-American Bishop Fitzgerald is a clear example of this.

USC’s linebackers and defensive line also struggled quite a bit at times, but the Trojans haven’t fired Rob Ryan or Eric Henderson. Cornerbacks coach Trovon Reed is also expected to be back.

Plus, Belk is considered an elite recruiter like many of USC’s other assistants.

Maybe this is just a source issue

The most likely scenario is that the Patterson hire has already happened, at least unofficially, and USC is just keeping it under wraps. That would mean parting ways with Belk was made as a result of hiring Patterson and his conditions for his defensive staff.

In that scenario, the Belk news breaking before the Patterson news would just be because a source close to Belk let the media in on that development, while sources close to Patterson aren’t letting the media know yet.

Again, that doesn’t explain exactly why USC is keeping the Patterson news under wraps or why news that Patterson has talked to USC is out in the open, but not news that USC has hired him.

But, as illogical as it may seem, that is probably what is going on.

USC’s other hires — do they relate?

It’s also possible that new special teams coach Mike Ekeler will be part of Gary Patterson’s defensive staff. Ekeler has a history of coaching linebackers, including at USC in 2013. If Belk’s departure is Patterson’s doing, I don’t see why he couldn’t have had a say in hiring Ekeler.

I’d assume that the addition of Ray Thomas to the strength and conditioning staff is just a Trumain Carroll hire, given that the strength staff works holistically with all three phases of the football team. Plus, Thomas worked with Carroll before at Kansas State.

Trojan fans can only wait and see what happens at the defensive coordinator position in the coming days.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Doug Belk exits, Mike Ekeler hired, still no USC defensive coordinator

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