USC's 2024 opponents feature crucial staff changes (2024)

The only constant is change. That's certainly the reality in college football.

The newest era of the game has brought unprecedented roster upheaval, but one aspect that's always been in constant motion is the coaching carousel. Head coaches and coordinators are only as good as their most recent seasons in most cases. The hope is always fresh leadership brings about fresh results. USC's offense got an instant jolt when Lincoln Riley arrived to run it two years ago. UCLA's defense morphed in one offseason from zeroes to heroes thanks to the work of D'Anton Lynn. The Trojans aren't just facing a schedule full of challenging teams and new quarterbacks in 2024. They're also up against multiple opponents who made changes at the top of the org chart this past offseason.

It's clear LSU needed to make a change on one side of the ball, and that's exactly what transpired. Brian Kelly and Joe Sloan will continue to run the offense in Baton Rouge. Blake Baker replaced Matt House. House took the employment 'L' after a season in which somehow the Tigers managed to be worse defensively (points allowed per drive) than even USC. Baker returned to the Tiger staff after coaching the linebackers in 2021. In between, he was the defensive coordinator at Missouri for two seasons. Last season, the Tiger defense finished No. 35 in points allowed per drive.

Utah State head coach Blake Anderson continued to believe in himself as offensive coordinator but also made a change at defensive coordinator. Nate Dreiling replaced Joe Cauthen as defensive coordinator, and the Aggies' rank in the table above made it clear why that change was made.

Jim Harbaugh became just the fifth head coach in the history of the sport not to return to a school after winning a national championship. The other four were Tom Osborne (Nebraska 1997), Howard Schnellengerger (Miami 1983), Johnny Majors (Pitt 1976), Frank Leahy (Notre Dame 1943) and Bernie Bierman (Minnesota 1941). That opened the door for Sherrone Moore to succeed Harbaugh as head coach. Moore replaced himself as offensive coordinator with Kirk Campbell. Campbell had been on Michigan's staff the previous two seasons. Defensive coordinator Jesse Minter left Ann Arbor with Harbaugh to run the Los Angeles Chargers' defense. Moore hired Wink Martindale to replace him. Martindale coached in the NFL for the past 20 seasons. That includes nine seasons coaching for John Harbaugh in Baltimore.

Phil Longo (offense) and Mike Tressel (defense) return to Luke Fickell's Wisconsin staff in the same coordinator positions as they held in 2023.

Last season, P.J. Fleck had Greg Harbaugh Jr.and Matt Simon coordinate Minnesota's offense. Corey Hetherman coordinated the Golden Gopher defense. All three return in the same roles despite turning in less than dazzling results.

Not all changes are the result of problems on a side of the ball. James Franklin watched defensive coordinator Manny Diaz leave to take over the head job at Duke. Franklin replaced Diaz with Tom Allen and retained Andy Kotelnicki as offensive coordinator. Allen was Indiana's head coach for the previous seven seasons at Indiana.

Mike Locksley retained both defensive coordinator Brian Williams and offensive coordinator Josh Gattis at Maryland. Gattis won the Broyles Award as the country's top assistant coach at Michigan in 2021 and is in College Park for a second season in 2024. Williams has been on staff at Maryland since 2019 and has been the defensive coordinator since 2022.

Out in Piscataway, Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano retained offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca for a second season and Joe Harasymiak as defensive coordinator for a third season. The Scarlet Knight defense far out performed the offense in 2023 so this could be a hot seat season for Ciarrocca.

Washington basically hit "Control+Alt+Delete" on its entire football program, so it's a hat trick of changes just as it was for the team that beat the Huskies in the national championship. New head coach Jedd Fisch invested in the bloodlines when choosing his coordinators. Fisch hired Steve Belichick (Bill's son) to run the Husky defense. Belichick coached for his pop the last 12 seasons in New England, the final four as defensive coordinator. Fisch brought Brennan Carroll (Pete's son) with him from Arizona where Carroll was the offensive coordinator for three seasons.

Matt Rhule returned Marcus Satterfield to Nebraska as offensive coordinator for a second straight season. Satterfield has worked for Rhule over the past eight seasons and four stops (Nebraska, Carolina Panthers, Baylor and Temple). Satterfield was Rhule's offensive coordinator at Temple for three seasons. Tony White put together an elite defense in Lincoln under Rhule and he's been a Broyles nominee the past two seasons. This will be White's fifth season overall as a defensive coordinator.

UCLA brought in DeShaun Foster to replace Chip Kelly and that necessitated staff changes in Westwood. Foster brought in Eric Bienemy from the NFL's Washington Commanders (and Kansas City Chiefs) to run the Bruin offense. He replaced D'Anton Lynn's vacated defensive coordinator spot with Ikaika Milloe. Milloe is new to the coordinator position at UCLA but not to UCLA or the defensive coordinator position. He's been on staff in Westwood since 2021 and he had three seasons of defensive coordinator experience at Yale (2009-11).

Marcus Freeman's Notre Dame squad had a solid 2023 and that meant no changes at the top. Al Golden is back for a third season as the Fighting Irish defensive coordinator. 36-year coaching veteran Mike Denbrock is back for his second straight campaign running Notre Dame's offense.

New HC, OC and DC

Michigan

Washington

UCLA

New DC Only

LSU

Utah State

Penn State

No Changes

Wisconsin

Minnesota

Maryland

Rutgers

Nebraska

Notre Dame