Since DeShaun Foster was fired earlier this week, D’Anton Lynn has been near the top of most prospective lists of head coaching candidates for UCLA.
But USC’s rising star defensive coordinator said on Wednesday that he has not been contacted about the open job across town and reiterated that his attention was trained on the Trojans’ upcoming matchup with Michigan State on Saturday night.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff on defense that we’ve got to clean up and improve on,” Lynn said. “So that’s where all my focus is right now.”
Lynn, who spent the 2023 season as UCLA’s defensive coordinator, signed a contract extension with USC in January that made him one of the highest-paid assistants in college football after his alma mater, Penn State, pursued him for its open defensive coordinator job.
But until now, Lynn’s name had never been connected to any head coaching jobs.
The pursuit from Penn State came after Lynn transformed the Trojans’ struggling defense in a single season. After hitting rock bottom under previous coordinator Alex Grinch, USC gave up 10 fewer points per game under Lynn last season, leaping from 121st in the nation (34.4 points per game) to a respectable 56th (24.1). The defense improved considerably against the run, giving up nearly 50 fewer yards per game, and with its tackling, missing three fewer on average per game.
That progress has continued so far into 2025, as USC has allowed just 16.7 points per game through three weeks, albeit against lesser competition.
Lynn engineered a similar overhaul of UCLA’s defense in his first season as a defensive coordinator. After inheriting a group that finished 87th in yards allowed and 90th in points allowed, he transformed UCLA’s defense into a consensus top 10 unit.
At the time, then-Bruins head coach Chip Kelly said that UCLA “definitely would love to keep D’Anton here.”
“I know our administration knows how valuable D’Anton is to us,” said Kelly, who left UCLA a month after Lynn. “He’s done a tremendous job, and he’s a really good football coach.”
Lynn left less than a week later for USC, which doubled his salary as defensive coordinator.
How determined he is to keep climbing that ladder remains to be seen. Lynn first rose through the ranks as an assistant in the NFL and multiple teams have kept a close eye on him since he left for college football.
But like so many others in his position, Lynn did acknowledge he still has hopes of being a head coach someday.
“I think everyone who gets into coaching wants to at some point,” Lynn said. “But you know, it’s a long process. There’s so much in front of your face that if you stop paying attention to that, bad things happen.”
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