Early returns: Todd Orlando doing what USC hired him to do

Scrutiny and criticism come with the job. It's a bottom-line, results-driven business, and success is always tenuous, at least in terms of outside perception.

USC defensive coordinator Todd Orlando knows that as well as anyone.

He went from his former boss, Texas coach Tom Herman, calling him "the best defensive coordinator in the country" to being fired less than two years later. He then went from the preseason optimism surrounding his USC debut this fall to a cacophony of critics ready to levy a verdict on his Trojans tenure already after just a couple games.

Now, though, that hire is looking very good for USC.

The Trojans have have held back-to-back Pac-12 opponents to under 20 points while establishing an identity for timely turnovers and big plays in the backfield.

Orlando's defense forced 5 turnovers and racked up 3 sacks in the 33-17 win at Utah, while holding the Utes to 327 yards, and then picked up 3 more turnovers and 4 more sacks in the 38-13 win over Washington State last weekend, holding the Cougars to just 263 yards.

"I just thought we were continuing to just play really, really hard with a lot of energy and cutting it loose, which is what we continued to talk about when we first got here. You're starting to see it, which is nice to see it's back-to-back weeks," Orlando said. "You get out of Utah and you say to yourself, 'OK, is this real or is this one of these things where you just got hot?' But they played the same way."

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And just like that, the Trojans rank first in the Pac-12 in fewest points allowed (21.8 per game, 26th-best nationally). They are the only defense in the country that has played at least four games that is averaging 3 turnovers per game, while ranking 21st nationally (third in the conference) with 3.0 sacks per game and 34th nationally (third in the Pac-12) in yards allowed per game at 356.5.

But the most telling metric is to compare those numbers to where USC ranked a year ago -- 78th nationally in scoring defense (29.4 PPG), 77th in total defense (408.5 YPG), tied for 84th in turnovers forced (16 in 13 games) and tied for 28th in sacks (2.69 per game).

That's why Orlando was hired -- to bring about that kind of improvement.

With all that said, though, he was asked that in this results-driven, bottom-line, often unforgiving business, where he has faced the fallout when things don't go exactly as planned, if he is able to feel the pressure lessened when it is working on the field -- as it has the last two games for the Trojans.

"No, it's never about that. I think anybody that does this, if they're worried about that, they're dead. They got no chance," he said this week. "... Your biggest critic should be you. To me, it's an internal fight every day when you wake up to say, did I give everything I could to this program? Was I sharp today? Because you know. You know. You watch film and you go through it and you have a plan in your head about what you want to do and be smart enough to figure out when they're not doing the things that you thought they were going to do. But you won't last in this, you won't last in life if you're one of these -- the higher up jobs -- if you're listening to outside noise. It just doesn't happen.

"You have to compete every day versus yourself. Every second that you wake up and you sprint into this office, you stay in routine, you do the things and you go from there, so I don't worry about that."

As for the mentality his defense is building -- opportunistic with the turnovers, chaos-creating in the backfield, etc. -- again, Orlando didn't want to take this opportunity for any sort of validation.

Many of those metrics -- the sacks and turnovers, the improving rush defense (111 yards on 28 carries for Utah, 73 yards on 27 carries for WSU) -- may be characteristics of the defenses he's built in the past as well, but he knows that, perception-wise at least, a coordinator is only as good as the next game.

A month ago, some fans were already prematurely off the bandwagon on his USC tenure. The last two games, the defense is carrying the Trojans.

Not that he's listening to any of it either way, to be clear.

"It's players making plays. It's that simple," Orlando said. "A lot of stuff is sometimes good and sometimes not good. This is a game about players making plays. That scheme that Tally [Talanoa Hufanga] tipped the ball up to himself and jumped over a guy, yeah, that's not coaching. That's a player, you know what I'm saying? And Nick [Figueroa] runs through a couple guys and we cover 'em and Nick keeps going like hair-on-fire stuff, that's a player. So it's important to make sure that those guys are getting a ton of the credit -- they're making all the plays."

Orlando doesn't have to accept the credit to deserve it, though. With an entirely new defensive staff and new scheme, without the benefit of spring practice or a standard summer, the reasonable expectation entering this season should have been to see progress throughout. And that's what the Trojans are showing -- even with depleted depth that forced Orlando to play Hufanga, his star safety, at middle linebacker last week, where he led the team with 9 tackles, a sack and that interception he returned 37 yards to the WSU 4 to set up an early touchdown for the offense.

Meanwhile, UCLA is riding its own defensive surge, coming off a 27-10 win over Arizona followed by a 25-18 win over Arizona State. (It's been somewhat of a mixed bag for the Bruins, though, as they gave up 48 points to Colorado, 10 to Cal and 38 to Oregon in the first three games).

A year after USC beat UCLA, 52-35, as the teams combined for 1,183 yards of offense, it may be a different story on Saturday. Or the narratives of a wonky college football season may flip yet again.

However it goes, Orlando just wants his defense to keep playing loose and not worrying about anything other than the next play -- the same way he's learned to approach the job after a decade and a half as a coordinator, riding the rollercoaster of this business.

"Sometimes, it’s not going to be perfect all the time with it," he said. "And these guys care. They really do. I knew that walking in the door. Those first couple days of winter workouts that we did, as we started to do the football part, we’d see guys get really down on themselves when they missed a play or missed an assignment. And I’m like, 'Let it go, let it go.' We’re all going to make mistakes. Every one of us. I’m going to make a mistake today. But if you do it aggressively, we’ll figure the rest of it out. Just run and hit. ...Play loose, play free. Practice loose, practice free. If you make a mistake, learn from it, and don’t make the same mistake again. But don’t let that slow you down. You gotta wash it. It’s over with. Next play, run and hit.

"That’s been our approach, and it’s been good. You can see it in the last couple weeks."