LOS ANGELES — The youngsters had given USC coach Lincoln Riley and his staff some reason to trust them, and so it was that they trusted them on Saturday, a host of freshmen and sophomores getting key snaps in massive situations against fourth-ranked Penn State.
They hadn’t done it enough the week before, against Minnesota, Riley remarked after the loss to Penn State. And so USC tossed defensive lineman Jide Abasiri into the fire, and fellow true freshman linebacker Desman Stephens II went with him, rotating in a variety of packages on USC’s defensive front.
“We felt that was something,” Riley said, of playing USC’s young depth, “that we needed to be better at.”
They have no choice but to trust those young hands, now, after a Tuesday that left USC’s defensive prospects limping. First came news, after practice, that defensive lineman Anthony Lucas was out for the season following surgery. Then came another backbreaker an hour later, flying across social media: linebacker Eric Gentry, too, would miss the year.
“It breaks my heart that I share with you all my decision to redshirt for the remainder of the season,” Gentry wrote in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday night, “due to a series of concussions in a short period of time.”
It tied a knot on a thread that has dangled since Gentry was carted off the field during USC’s late-September victory over Wisconsin, with Riley last week acknowledging the possibility the senior linebacker could take a redshirt year. The news, cemented now, leaves USC without its most versatile and consistent playmaker in the middle of the defense, Gentry ending his season with 30 tackles and a pair of sacks in just four games.
Deeper, though, it leaves USC without a player Riley called an “emotional sparkplug,” a frantic 6-foot-6 buzz of sinewy energy who led the way for the Trojans with an abundance of confidence and an abundance of trash-talk.
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“But we’ve got other guys certainly that can fill that need,” Riley said Thursday, “and have that energy and kind of that infectious energy about them, so certainly you rely on them more.”
Stephens, certainly, seems in line for more snaps in some three-linebacker formations, the versatile athlete making a massive play on an interception against Penn State. Anthony Beavers Jr., too, seems likely to stick at weakside linebacker in Gentry’s absence, the program veteran starting against Minnesota a couple of weeks ago before seeing his snaps decline against Penn State.
College football has seen a slew of announced redshirts with intentions to transfer – a fate that seems increasingly likely for junior defensive lineman Bear Alexander. Gentry, though, made clear his commitment to USC in his announcement Tuesday night.
“I want to make it clear that this decision has absolutely noting to do with my playing time or NIL opportunities,” Gentry wrote on Twitter. “My love for this team, and all of you is unwavering.”