Sports
Gavin Meyer's portal patience has paid off for USC in its defensive makeover
The window was quickly closing last May, the pool of available transfers nearly set for next season, and Lincoln Riley had yet to land the interior lineman he and USC’s defense still desperately needed.
Damonic Williams, one of the top young defensive tackles in the Big 12, was headed to Oklahoma. Derick Harmon, a 320-pound behemoth previously at Michigan State, chose Oregon. Within two days in May, two of the most coveted tackles in the transfer portal were out of reach. Others were finding homes fast. Time was running out to find a fit.
For Gavin Meyer, though, there was no real hurry. The Wyoming grad transfer had waited until the last possible moment to enter the portal, just barely beating the May 1 deadline. In part because he was graduating that week in Laramie, Wyo., where he’d spent the last four years. But also Meyer understood his circumstances made finding the right situation especially important. He didn’t want to just be a depth piece added to some defense at the eleventh hour.
“I think that’s 100% in people’s thoughts in the transfer portal,” Meyer said. “You have to find your right fit. There’s so many things that go into that. With players on the team, how many guys they have on the team, but also the coaching staff. As long as you’re in the portal and you have the right intentions, a lot of people see through a lot of stuff.”
USC had already added a transfer tackle in January, Isaiah Raikes, just to see him jump ship after spring. No matter how perilously thin the Trojans were on the interior, Riley didn’t want to add for the sake of adding, either.
The previous cycle had been “a good reminder,” Riley said later, of how adding a poor fit from the portal could be “one of the most damaging things you can do.” This time, he and his USC staff were intent on “bringing in the right guys from the portal, not just the right body types or right experience level.”
In Meyer, Riley and his new defensive coordinator, D’Anton Lynn, felt right away they’d found a combination of all three. Even if he’d never had the chance to prove it at the power conference level.
“He was one of the very, very few,” Riley said, “who checked all the boxes for us.”
USC is looking like a potential playoff team while UCLA is still trying to get on its feet.
Meyer has so far delivered on that initial confidence, even unexpectedly unseating the Trojans incumbent, all-conference defensive tackle, Bear Alexander, to earn a starting spot through the first two weeks. During that time, Meyer and Alexander have rotated evenly at tackle, playing roughly the same number of snaps (Meyer’s 49 to Alexander’s 48). But where Meyer has earned universal early acclaim from coaches, the tone surrounding Alexander has been decidedly different since he sat out most of spring nursing an injury.
While Riley has praised his progress, the coach also made note before the season how Alexander “is still very young on the football field.”
“Bear has a long ways to go,” he said.
Meyer, meanwhile, made clear to Lynn upon first meeting him that he’d have no trouble picking up the Trojans new defensive scheme. For more than an hour on his visit, they talked about the finer points of defense, while Lynn rolled tape, peppering Meyer with questions.
“We’re talking Xs and O’s, concepts,” Meyer said. “He’s asking me, ‘What do you see here? What do you see here?’ And we’re going back and forth, back and forth on all that stuff.”
It was an eye-opening exchange for Meyer.
“That was the moment when I was like, ‘Yep, sounds about right,’” Meyer said. “Everything I’d heard about him and how he perceives the game of football was exactly how I see it.”
And in Meyer, Lynn saw something USC’s defense was desperately missing a season ago: a consistent presence on the interior.
It didn’t matter that he’d arrived on campus only this summer. Or that his experience at Wyoming was spent primarily in a part-time role.
“From the very first practice, he was just on it,” Lynn said. “From the fronts, the adjustments, the pressures, seeing how he picked it up that fast was super impressive.”
Meyer’s role on the interior should only prove more integral from here, with Michigan, the defending national champs, looming next Saturday and a slate of beefy Big Ten fronts fast approaching after that.
But so far, the fit at USC has been everything he — and his coaches — could have hoped for, considering how late they’d found each other.
“Just in the perfect place,” Meyer said with a smile. “The perfect place to get better.”
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Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley sounded off on the frenzied reactions to the U.S. men’s hockey team getting invited to the White House by President Donald Trump.
Trump talked to the Olympic gold medal-winning team immediately after they defeated Canada in overtime last weekend. He said they would be invited to his State of the Union address and added that he needed to invite the women’s team as well or he would be “impeached.”
Charles Barkley sits courtside against the Minnesota Timberwolves during an NBA Cup game at Mortgage Matchup Center on Nov. 21, 2025. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
Trump critics took the joke as a shot at the women’s team, which sparked questions from NHL and Professional Women’s Hockey League reporters as the players returned to their respective club teams.
“I’m proud of the United States men. I’m proud of the United States women. You should have invited both of them to the White House, but it shouldn’t have been disrespect, misogyny,” Barkley said on the “Steam Room” podcast. “Like, yo, man, why do y’all have to mess everything up? Everything isn’t Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal. That’s why we got this divided, screwed up country. Stop it man. Because, you know, the public, they’re idiots. They’re fools. They can’t think for themselves. I know y’all say stuff to trigger them. Y’all say stuff and y’all know they’re going to be fools.”
Barkley lamented that the average person would get riled up over the supposed controversy.
The U.S. team poses for a group photo after defeating Canada in the men’s ice hockey gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Milan, Italy, on Feb. 22, 2026. (Luca Bruno/AP Photo)
“We don’t have to fall for stupidity. But we do – that’s my point. These people out here are stupid. They need something to trigger them. Just because they want us to be stupid. We don’t have to be stupid. He should have invited both teams to the White House. Simple as that. Guys who didn’t want to go shouldn’t have to explain why they didn’t go.”
The former Philadelphia 76ers, Houston Rockets and Phoenix Suns star made clear he would go to the White House regardless of whether Trump was in office.
“I’ve said this before, I’m not a Trump guy. But if I got invited to the White House, I would go. I’m not a Trump guy – I want to make that clear. But I respect the office,” Barkley said. “He’s the president of the United States. But if guys don’t want to go, I understand that too. It doesn’t have to be a talking point. It doesn’t have to be un-American.
Megan Keller (5) celebrates with a flag alongside Cayla Barnes (3) of Team United States after scoring the game-winning goal in overtime during the women’s gold medal match against Canada on Day 13 of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games at Milan Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 19, 2026. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
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“I just wish y’all would stop falling for the stupidity.”
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Three years ago, as a 14-year-old freshman, Slava Shahbazyan made it to Bakersfield for the state wrestling championships.
“It was good to get experience that young,” he said.
Then came Saturday night when he had a breakthrough moment, winning the state 165-pound championship as a 17-year-old senior for Birmingham High.
“It means everything to me,” he said. “It took four years.”
Shahbazyan, who transferred from Chaminade after his sophomore year, is set to attend Stanford and still in the hunt to be valedictorian at Birmingham. Coach Jimmy Medeiros said he was close to winning last season before finishing fourth.
“He got a lot better,” Medeiros said.
Shahbazyan has been wrestling since he was 8. “My father loves wrestling,” he said.
Two St. John Bosco wrestlers, Jesse Grajeda at 144 pounds and Michael Romero at 150 pounds, also won state titles.
Here’s the link to complete results.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
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Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Dominiq Ponder died this weekend, the team’s head coach Deion Sanders confirmed on Sunday with a social media post.
“God please comfort the Ponder family, friends and loved ones,” Sanders wrote on social media. “Dom was one of my favorites! He was Loved, Respected & a Born Leader. Let’s pray for all that knew him & had the opportunity to be in his presence. Lord you’re receiving a good 1. Comfort us Lord Comfort us.”
Ponder was 23 years old.
Details of Ponder’s death are not yet known.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders watches his team warm up before an NCAA college football game against TCU Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Tony Gutierrez/AP Photo)
Ponder, a 6-foot-5, 200-pound signal caller, joined the Buffaloes and “Coach Prime’s” program in 2024 after spending time at Bethune-Cookman before making his way to Boulder.
Last season, Ponder played just two games for the Buffaloes while serving in his backup role. He recorded two rush attempts and one pass attempt.
The Opa Locka, Fla., native also received tribute from a fellow quarterback with the Buffaloes, Colton Allen.
Bethune-Cookman QB Dominiq Ponder takes a snap during the Wildcats’ spring game Saturday, April 22, 2023, at Daytona Stadium. (IMAGN)
“Dom, you were a blessing to so many people,” Allen wrote on Instagram. “You had a presence about you that just made everything better. You brought so much joy to me and everyone around you. I’m grateful for every lift, every practice, every rep, every conversation we got to share. I’ll carry those with me for the rest of my life.”
Ponder was going to be a part of Colorado’s spring practices, which are set to begin on Monday. It’s unknown if Sanders will postpone the start due to Ponder’s passing.
Ponder also received a tribute from the University of Central Florida.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders watches his players warm up before an NCAA college football game against Utah, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (Tyler Tate/AP Photo)
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“Our prayers are with Dominiq and the Ponder family along with all in the Colorado football program,” the university’s football account on X wrote.
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