USC’s Jalen Hurts? Why Lincoln Riley is comparing Shane Lee to an old favorite

When Jalen Hurts left Alabama for Oklahoma forward of the 2019 season, Lincoln Riley noticed firsthand how a single switch might reshape a workforce’s tradition. In Hurts’ case, the impression was fast. The brand new quarterback’s presence helped carry a locker room that misplaced Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray, sending the Sooners hovering to the School Soccer Playoff for a 3rd season in a row.

Three years later, one other Alabama switch is incomes comparable plaudits from Riley and his employees at USC.

Shane Lee didn’t got down to be a locker-room chief. He simply needed to play, to be part of one thing. After incomes freshman All-American honors because the Tide’s beginning center linebacker, a sequence of obstacles largely exterior of his management stored Lee from regaining the position. A sports activities hernia restricted him to 5 video games as a sophomore throughout Alabama’s 2020 nationwide title run. A stacked depth chart restricted him after that, as he registered solely 10 mixed tackles over his final two seasons.

“Initially it was actually irritating, however I discovered rather a lot,” Lee stated this week. “I grew rather a lot. It’s adversity — like, everyone goes by way of it, and also you’ve simply obtained to have a look at it a sure means and have the ability to be taught from it and develop from it and be higher due to it.”

USC coaches might sense that development early in conversations with Lee. The linebacker, in flip, was instantly offered on the tradition Riley and his employees have been constructing.

“It was all about profitable,” Lee stated. “It simply appeared like household. It appeared actual real, it appeared, actually, like me. So it appeared like a great match.”

The effusive reward this spring suggests USC agrees.

Riley in contrast him to Hurts, including on the “Trojans Dwell” radio present this week that Lee had been “instrumental inside our program” since his arrival.

“He provides rather a lot to the room,” inside linebackers coach Brian Odom stated Thursday, heaping extra reward onto Lee. “His experiences, the way in which he talks, the way in which he carries himself, the way in which he works, his demeanor, he’s all about ball. All people enjoys being round him, is aware of he’s a critical man. He’s constructed fairly a popularity to begin.”

How that may translate on the sphere remains to be to be decided, however Lee’s freshman season suggests the Trojans new barrel-chested linebacker could possibly be the chief USC has lengthy wanted in the course of its protection. At Alabama, Lee stepped in for injured All-SEC linebacker Dylan Moses as a freshman and deftly responded with 83 tackles, 4.5 sacks and an interception.

Lee wouldn’t expose a lot about what occurred to his position there, aside from to acknowledge that accidents performed a component in his tumble down the depth chart. The curiosity from different groups got here pouring in when he entered the switch portal in mid-January. Odom reached out nearly instantly, and 10 days later, Lee was headed to USC.

He’d by no means been to Los Angeles, however in talking with Riley, USC felt like an ideal match.

Nothing about Lee’s expertise thus far has modified his thoughts.

“We come out right here in exercises and die and I look over and I see downtown, I see the mountains and I see the palm timber and it’s rather a lot totally different than the place I come from,” stated Lee, who grew up in Maryland. “So it’s actually cool to be out right here. It’s rather a lot totally different, however it’s actually cool. I’m able to embrace all of it.”

Lee steps into the center of an in any other case dire state of affairs at linebacker, one which Odom overtly admitted this week wants quite a lot of work.

“Nowhere close to the place we have to be,” Odom stated of USC’s linebackers. “We’ve obtained to get so significantly better right here over the following few months.”

Senior linebacker Ralen Goforth returns with 105 profession tackles however was a starter in the course of USC’s struggling protection final season.

Sophomore Raesjon Davis, a former top-50 prospect who was seen as a significant recruiting coup in USC’s 2021 class, affords one other intriguing possibility alongside Lee. But Davis couldn’t get on the sphere for USC as a freshman, failing to report a single sort out.

It’s unclear the place Davis stands in USC’s plans on protection. However when requested for his evaluation, Odom was sincere.

“He’s obtained some maturing to do by way of understanding what it takes to be a high-level Division 1 athlete,” Odom stated. “It’s my job to get him there. Enthusiastic about doing it. Enthusiastic about his future right here for certain.”