LOS ANGELES — Jaylin Smith’s trademark thousand-watt smile glints, now, with wisdom rather than youthful verve, speaking with reporters on Wednesday afternoon at the end of his fourth fall camp in USC’s defensive back room.
“I’m gettin’ old in this thing, man,” Smith grinned.
His senior season at USC, though, will keep him young.
Long before he became a leading tackler in USC’s secondary, Smith grew up in Palmdale a running back and a cornerback, the very first positions he tried in his early days in youth football. Running back didn’t quite stick. Cornerback did. Eventually, though, he arrived at Bishop Alemany High to play at nickel, a natural ball-hawk with coverage skills who has primarily worked in that same slot-corner role for three seasons at USC.
Since the spring, however, new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn has touted Smith’s versatility. He’s a “defensive back,” Lynn has emphasized on multiple occasions, capable of all alignments underneath that umbrella. And on Wednesday, Smith rattled off the positions he’d been working at throughout the fall: high safety, low safety, nickel – and, yes, cornerback, the rebirth of his youth.
“I feel like, it’s kinda come back to reality, or come back home, for real,” Smith told reporters.
And the talent has been obvious in his 5-foot-11 frame for years at USC, culminating in a breakout of sorts in 2023, finishing as the defense’s second-leading tackler and named the defensive MVP of December’s Holiday Bowl victory over Louisville. But Smith’s greatest skill, ultimately, lies in his versatility – and could form his greatest broad-scale contribution to USC’s new-look defense in 2024.
For months, he’s been largely absent from the public eye, his Wednesday chat the first time he has spoken with members of the media since his junior season. He missed all of spring practice with an injury. It wasn’t ideal, naturally. But it reaped benefits, in a way: Lynn challenged Smith to learn the entirety of a malleable scheme while hobbled, saying at USC’s preseason media day in late July that the senior was “locked into the playbook.”
Healthy again, he’s dabbled in a “little bit of everything” in the secondary, he smiled Wednesday.
“Coach Lynn is tailoring the defense for our players, if that makes sense,” Smith said Wednesday. “So there’s, like – I’d just honestly say, he puts us in the best position to make plays.”
It brought another example from training camp of players lauding Lynn’s player-friendly scheme, still ambiguous in exact principle but inspiring constant buzz from its pupils. Veteran linebacker Eric Gentry, who was yo-yoed constantly in 2023 between warming the sidelines and prominent snaps, didn’t hold back Wednesday in his praise of USC’s new staff – and his dismissal of the old regime.
“Just not being able to overthink or worry about doing your assignment – instead just doing the play, so, that’s the biggest thing,” Gentry said, when asked if he felt he could think less in Lynn’s scheme. “I think we was more, other stuff, instead of playing football. I think it’s way more straightforward this year.”
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Smith’s exact placement in a crowded room, ultimately, is uncertain. But even as a slew of transfer cornerbacks have entered the fray, the fall has offered enough hints he could see consistent time lining up on the outside.
Welcome, Professor Carroll
Seven months after being fired by the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll is returning to his heyday in Southern California.
Not as a coach, though.
USC confirmed to the Southern California News Group on Wednesday that Carroll, who elevated the program to the peak of college football in the 2000s, will return to the school “for classroom instruction,” the university said in an email. Carroll first floated the idea on Tuesday during an interview with Seattle radio station 93.3 KJR, saying he anticipated teaching a class at USC in the spring.
“We are excited to welcome Pete Carroll home to USC in a new capacity in which he can, as a legendary coach and leader, share his knowledge and experience with our students,” USC wrote in a statement. “We are working on the details and hope to share more specifics later.”
Add in the return of Reggie Bush’s Heisman Trophy to campus, and USC is set for plenty of flashbacks to the glory days come 2024-25.