Perspective on why USC is hiring Texas State's Clay McGuire as OL coach
Nearly three weeks after parting ways with former offensive line coach Tim Drevno, USC has found his replacement.
The Athletic's Bruce Feldman was first to report the Trojans are set to hire Clay McGuire, who spent the last two seasons as the offensive line coach at Texas State after previously working with USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell at Washington State and coaching on the staff at Texas Tech when Harrell was the quarterback there.
The hire of McGuire is not official yet, but TrojanSports.com can confirm that it is expected.
McGuire was an H-back at Texas Tech from 2000-04 before joining the Red Raiders staff in 2006 as a video intern and moving up the ranks to graduate assistant (2007), special teams coordinator (2008) and ultimately running backs coach (2009). He coached the offensive line when he reunited with Leach at Washington State from 2012-2017.
Harrell, meanwhile, played at Texas Tech from 2005-08, overlapping with McGuire, and then spent 2014 as an offensive analyst at Washington State and 2015 as the outside WRs coach there as the two worked together.
But the biggest factor in USC selecting McGuire is his history working in successful Air Raid offenses.
In all, McGuire spent 10 seasons on staff with Mike Leach -- four at Texas Tech in those varying roles and six at Washington State before returning to Texas Tech as co-offensive coordinator and running backs coach in 2018 to work under Kliff Kingsbury, the Leach disciple who continued to put up huge offensive stats with the Red Raiders.
In between those stints, he also worked under another of college football's most successful offensive minds as the running backs and special teams coach at East Carolina from 2010-11 under then-offensive coordinator Lincoln Riley, now the celebrated head coach at Oklahoma.
He moved onto Texas State in 2019 after Kingsbury was fired at Texas Tech (only to ultimately be hired as the head coach of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals).
But that resume -- experience working under three of the most successful offensive coaches in college football over the last two decades, in systems similar to what the Trojans want to do -- is what made McGuire stand out in USC's coaching search.
While Harrell has often stated that his brand of Air Raid offense is different from Leach's and that he wants more run-pass balance, Drevno -- an accomplished offensive line coach who worked under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford, Michigan and with the San Francisco 49ers -- had never coached in an Air Raid system. Despite his track record, ultimately there was a disconnect between what the Trojans were doing up front and what the system needed to produce at its peak collectively.
And McGuire's background coaching running backs in addition to the offensive line can't hurt as USC looks to improve a rushing attack that ranked 120th out of 127 FBS teams in 2020 at 97.33 yards per game.
Drevno and strength and conditioning coach Aaron Ausmus were the only Trojans coaches let go after last season.
USC announced over the weekend the hiring of Robert Stiner as the new director of football sports performance after serving in assistant role in the strength and conditioning program at Notre Dame.
As for McGuire, he gives the Trojans even more Texas ties on the coaching staff. Harrell and offensive quality control analyst Seth Doege both played quarterback at Texas Tech, tight ends coach John David Baker played QB at Abilene Christian and coached with Harrell at North Texas, running backs coach Mike Jinks was a longtime high school coach in Texas before becoming RBs coach at Texas Tech from 2013-15, and defensive coordinator Todd Orlando and safeties coach Craig Naivar spent two seasons at Houston and the next three at Texas before joining the Trojans. (Head coach Clay Helton also started his playing career at Houston and coached the running backs there from 1997-99).
USC has signed three offensive linemen from Texas in the last two classes and will only have more reason now to mine the Lone Star State for talent at that position.