The first domino for any potential USC football staff makeover fell Saturday as Trojans outside linebackers coach Joe DeForest was announced by NC State as its new safeties coach.

DeForest spent one year as a USC assistant coach after previously serving as an a defensive analyst on the staff in 2018. He has a long coaching resume, including an extended tenure at Oklahoma State from 2001-11 in varied roles, three seasons at West Virginia (including one as defensive coordinator) and two at Kansas.

DeForest was on staff at Duke in the mid 2000s when USC head coach Clay Helton was just starting out in the business as a graduate assistant there. He took Helton under his wing at the time, and many years later Helton then pursued him to join the Trojans.

DeForest said in the spring that he had other assistant coaching opportunities last winter before Helton promoted him to fill USC's 10th and final opening on the staff. That he is now the first assistant coach to leave this offseason -- doing so just a day after the Trojans' final game -- is interesting.

But it will allow him to move closer to one of his main recruiting areas -- his native Florida. DeForest, who also recruits Texas, helped the Trojans land a couple of prospects late last cycle, including cornerback Dorian Hewett (Houston, Texas) and safety Briton Allen (out of IMG Academy in Florida).

Here's what he said last spring:

"I wasn't sure about coming out to the west coast because I'm from Florida, been coaching in the Big 12 for 20 years, but it was a great opportunity for me and I love it," DeForest said last week. "I just felt like it was a time in my career that I had to get out of the situation I was in and get to a better situation, and I felt like this is a good situation. And it's USC -- I mean, name five programs better."

At USC, DeForest had the smallest position group of any coach, as the Trojans used their outside linebackers as a rotational pass-rush option with limited snaps.

It will be interesting to see if Helton chooses to consolidate the OLBs and ILBs -- coached by longtime assistant Johnny Nansen -- together to allow him to restructure his staff and perhaps address the glaring need of an impact recruiter on the defensive side.

Meanwhile, the spotlight remains on whether or not Helton will look to replace defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast. Helton deflected a question about potential staff changes after the Holiday Bowl loss to Iowa on Friday night.

"I've been tasked with looking at the program as a whole, making any changes if necessary that I feel. Right now I'm going to go back and evaluate," he said. "Our players come back on January 13th, and I'm going to evaluate everything, not only personnel, staffing. ...That's my job. I'll be looking at it. I'll alert everybody if and when those happen."