Let's Talk About Alex Grinch

During his time as Lincoln Riley's defensive coordinator Alex Grinch inherited terrible defenses and made them either marginally better (Oklahoma) or worse (USC). One could argue that shit rolls down hill and Grinch wasn't given much to work with because of poor leadership from Riley (bad practice planning, ineffective strength and conditioning program, general discipline), but Grinch I'm guessing would be the first person to take the blame for the defensive shortcomings especially at USC. His "Speed D" did not gel with the Trojan's roster, and he was never able to get them to buy into the system. This is all well documented, and I encourage you to dig into the dozens of blog posts and YouTube videos documenting how bad of a defensive coordinator he is.

However, the question I want to ask is what happened to the defensive coordinator who took on a monumental task of turning around Washington State's defense from down right awful to a respectable and finally a top 20 defense in just three seasons.

Mike Leach, as well as many coaches that fall within his coaching tree (hello Lincoln) have had traditionally bad defenses. Various reasons have been given over the years from the lack of hitting in practice to spending the majority of your defensive reps practicing against an offense that you won't see on Saturday to the general lack of giving a shit that cocky offensive coaches have. Who cares how good your defense is when your offense can outscore everyone? Around the same time Mike Leach had the epiphany that the running game is a viable part of offensive football he decided he was going to care about defense when he hired an up and coming defensive back coach from Missouri as his new defensive coordinator in 2015. Alex Grinch came to Pullman after a successful stint coaching his uncle Gary Pinkel's defensive backs. He wasn't a product of nepotism as he had built a Mountain West leading defensive back group at Wyoming that also was top 5 nationally in turnovers. In Columbia his Tiger safeties were ball hawks forcing 15 interceptions including Braylon Webb's 4 in 2014 which earned him 2nd team All-SEC honors. It was this aggressive style of defensive back play that drew Mike Leach's attention and brought Grinch to Wazzu.

The defense Grinch inherited in Pullman was bad…very bad. In 2014 the Cougars were 114th in scoring defense (38.6 ppg), 97th in total yards (442.3 ypg), and 124th in turnovers forced (3). By 2017 he was able to statistically improve the defense to 59th in scoring defense (25.8 ppg), 16th in total defense (323.3 ypg), and 9th in turnovers (28). He did this all in the same conference as USC without all the recruiting advantages. This is the Alex Grinch I want. I don't know what happened between 2018-2023 that took this production out of his defenses but there is a multiple Broyles Award nominated coach within him that needs to come back out.

Taking in all the good and all the bad there is still one very important piece to this story that we must remember. He's not coming in to be the defensive coordinator. He was hired by Luke Fickell to coach safeties, a group that outside of Hunter Wohler had a unremarkable season. You didn't hear much about them other than the occasional Latu mental error. Any concerns about his ability to teach that safety group and to coach them up within Mike Tressel's defensive system were eliminated during the first five minutes of his interview. The positive aspects of his Speed D philosophy (aggression, movement, eagerness to insert in the run fit) fit well within the overall defensive philosophy, and anything that doesn't will be eliminated because...he's not the defensive coordinator.

And he knows it. He knows it all. He's heard the criticism, he's watched the film, he knows. Every coach has been fired, and those who bounce back are those who take ownership over their mistakes and stop feeling sorry for themselves. He has a lot to prove and a very difficult fan base to win over. Luckily for him since his name isn't Jim Leonhard he isn't going to be able to do that anyways so scratch that item off of the to-do list. But what he can do when he gets to Madison is to reacquaint himself with why he got into coaching. Take the opportunity to learn from an experienced coaching staff who's members all had the same ups and downs. Without the day to day pressures of being a coordinator he can get back to the personal side of the game and build a solid room.

Or he could fail. 2023 Alex could haunt him and 2017 Alex will be lost forever. On my various platforms I’ve been called comically optimistic (except when talking about Jack Nelson’s or Braelon Allen’s pass protection skills) to which I say it is my job to find the silver lining in every situation and a solution to every problem. Coaches can’t dwell on past mistakes and hope to get better. In this cutthroat business your next job could always be your last and I guarantee Alex Grinch doesn’t want to bury his career in Madison.