USC football poaches outstanding Defensive Line Coach from storied CFB program

USC football continues their streak of hiring the perfect assistants for Lincoln Riley's new staff with the reported hire of Shaun Nua as their D-Line coach.

As Thamel pointed out, Nua has been a defensive line coach at Michigan, where he was since 2019. He was at ASU the year before that, serving as a defensive line coach there as well. He began his D-line coaching career at Navy, where he served in that same role from 2012-2017.

Having Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo on his resume is of course huge, and his Samoan background is valuable. It's important to have a diverse staff at USC, as there is a lot of talented Samoan football players who USC will be in contention for in recruiting. Having a former Samoan college football player (BYU) in Nua on the staff is a perspective needed in order to give Samoan and other players of color the best experience.

Nua has been there and done that in this game, starting as a JUCO product and developing all the way up to a Super Bowl champion in the 2005-2006 NFL season with Pittsburgh. Nua was the D-line coach for a defense that was 12th in total yards allowed per game this season, and that was despite having to play two postseason games which of course provided a couple tough matchups on that defense.

USC football's hire of Shaun Nua continues to show that the program is on its way back to national glory.

Shaun Nua is a great fit for the USC football program, as his West Coast roots fit the program, and not just his Samoan roots. He started his playing career at Eastern Arizona College, and made his way up to ball at BYU. Returning back to Arizona to coach at ASU and now making his way back to coach at SC proves that there is nobody more west coast than Nua.

The fact that he left a program that just made the playoff and had a great defense for USC is saying quite a bit about the state of the Trojan football program. Michigan has a lot of history as well. It may not be USC, but it very well could have been enough to keep Nua in place.

Everyone wants to coach for Riley, though, and I get it. He's a top 5-6 head coach in the country at WORST, and he's generated so much excitement back to SC.

Credit to Mike Bohn and Brandon Sosna for working hard to assemble the best possible staff for our football program this offseason. They've truly been nailing this upcoming staff.