SCliff Notes: LSU cools on Clancy Pendergast and more USC football news

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The Mad Hatter provides the head-scratcher… For the last week, we’ve been keeping an eye on the developments of LSU’s defensive coordinator search, as former USC man Clancy Pendergast was said to go from a target for the job, to the outright favorite.

But on Monday, that changed, as NOLA.com reported that Les Miles’s interest in Pendergast had waned and he was no longer in the mix, citing a lack of familiarity with the SEC and recruiting.

Those are two perplexing reasons to not hire Pendergast. John Chavis was notorious for not recruiting while at LSU, and the SEC doesn’t have nearly the level of complexity on offense throughout the league as the Pac-12 does.

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If Pendergast was expected to be a pivotal recruiter replacing a pivotal recruiter, then a lack of familiarity with southern football would make sense as a reason to be turned off. But it’s hard to wrap your head around that rationale given how dismissive of recruiting Chavis was.

And if there’s anything that Pendergast’s track record has shown, it’s that if you let him do his thing with X’s and O’s, his defenses will produce incredibly, making up for his lack of recruiting prowess.

While at USC, he took a Trojan defense that gave up a quarter mile of rushing yards to Oregon in 2012, and made them the Pac-12’s No. 1 total defense in 2013. Considering how the SEC doesn’t have nearly the offensive firepower as the Pac-12, there’s no telling how effective Pendergast could’ve been at LSU.

But alas, no dice. Cue up more tweets from USC fans once again clamoring for his return as the Trojans’ defensive coordinator.

In Other News…

• After a long holiday hiatus and delay in posting, our newest podcast has dropped, looking back at USC’s win over Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. (Reign of Troy)
• USC had a huge weekend on the recruiting front, getting commitments from Ronald Jones II, Ykili Ross and Marvell Tell. Sports Illustrated breaks down the commitments from this weekend. (SI.com)
• Sticking on the recruiting front, Garry Paskweitz recaps the big weekend and takes a look at how Steve Sarkisian could finish up come Signing Day. (ESPN)
• Next season, USC’s Pac-12 schedules gets a big tougher with the re-inclusion of Washington and Oregon. But the Trojans won’t have to face Shaq Thompson, who declared for the 2015 NFL Draft on Monday. (GoHuskies.com)
• Despite Ricky Town being one of the headliners of USC’s 2015 recruiting class, San Clemente quarterback Sam Darnold told Lindsey Thiry that he’s not afraid of the competition. (LA Times)
• USC men’s basketball started out the season 0-2 in Pac-12 play after poor losses to Utah and Colorado this past weekend. Marshall Cherrington talks about the lack of the Trojans’ perimeter defense in his weekly rankings column. (USCFootball.com)
• The 2015 Trojans will need to find a way to replace Leonard Williams and Nelson Agholor, but that’s not just it. Kyle Kensing puts together a list of the biggest USC storylines going into the offseason. (Bleacher Report)
• Speaking of Williams, he could be an instant hit in the NFL. Bleacher Report’s Brian Leigh has the now former Trojan as one of 10 college football stars that could get a start in the NFL in 2015. (Bleacher Report)
• The latest version of the F/+ rankings are out on Football Outsiders, after this past weekend’s games. USC is now ranked 21st in F/+, up one spot from last week. (Football Outsiders)
• It’s just about that time for men’s volleyball to get going. This year’s USC team compares favorably to the 2012 team that lost to Irvine in the title game, says head coach Bill Ferguson. (USCTrojans.com)

Stat of the Day:

Despite giving up a the second most passing yards school history (3,569 yards), USC finished second in the Pac-12 in defensive passer rating with a mark of 120.4. Only Stanford had a better rating, at 105.8.

Tweets of the Day: