D’Anton Lynn, a defensive coordinator at USC, is one of the most outstanding strategists in college football. This season, he has been drawing up his defensive strategies magnificently well as seen in the games against LSU and the shutdown of Utah State. Lynn has the great talent of using alliances in defensive, unexpected strategies that disorient the opposing offenses. As the Trojans are set to face the Wolverine’s Michigan, who will be relying on Alex Orji who is relatively new on the team, Lynn will get another chance to exhibit his ingenious planning skills.

Lynn has made his strategies to use all the weaknesses and the game against Michigan is the final match to test all his defensive strategies. This was well captured by Blake Ruffino from “The Ruffino & Joe Show – Weekly College Football” where he said that USC’s defense is a defensive unit that prides itself in denying its opponents any success in the run game. Ruffino points out the possible bet that if Alex Orji is not ready, “they’re going to run blitz, they’re gonna stunt, and if Alex Orji isn’t ready for this, they’re going to get obliterated.” USC’s defense has strategies to apply strong pressure on Michigan’s Offensive line, forcing their QB, Orji into juiced-up passing scenarios.

This has raised eyebrows, especially with the choice to name Orji as the team’s starting quarterback at Michigan. Wolverines depend so much on their run game as attacking gameplay, the team is set for a tough time in this match. This is a problem. If Orji is unable to produce, then USC takes full advantage of it and can lock down Michigan in trouble.

USC’s defensive genius: the stakes for both teams

“USC’s defense is really stinking good. I don’t want to say total obliteration, but if Michigan isn’t prepared for the defensive onslaught, the score might look very similar to their game against Texas, where they struggled to find any rhythm.”, Joe DeLeone added. Thus, the stats show certain similarities and differences when Michigan and USC are preparing for the key game between them. Currently, the position of USC in ranking is quite good for the season along with the highlight, including the win of 27-20 against LSU and the complete rout of 48-0 against Utah State. Their defense being coordinated by D’Anton Lynn has really been good, especially in containing other team’s prolific attackers.

Michigan has been equally lucky and unfortunate; they trashed Fresno State 30-10, faced a hot Texas team, and lost 31-12 but won a game against Arkansas State 28-18. We have seen that with Alex Orji now at the helm for Michigan; we are going to have a highly dependent run in Michigan and this could be something that may be threatened when they go up against USC’s defense.

In an interview conducted recently, Michigan’s offensive coordinator, Sherrone Moore, justified the move to Orji highlighting that the latter has opinions from people discouraging him but he can throw and will make some big plays this week. “People have their opinions on him, but he can throw. He’ll make some big throws this week.”