It's a mystery how LSU got rated so high before the season. Mainly reputation and being an SEC team? They lost Jayden Daniels whose 5000 yards of total offense was 70% of the team's total. They also lost their two 1000 yard receivers and their second leading rusher to Daniels. They brought in another 1000 yard receiver from a smaller program who caught passes for all of 19 yards against USC. Defense? They were #110 in total defense last season and returned about half the starters, some transfers who weren't full time starters at their previous schools and some subs .
So we don't really know how good USC is and that includes their defense. Sure, it's improved, but that wouldn't have been difficult for any competent coach. Think of it this way: How would Lynn have done with last year's USC personnel or this season's UCLA players? The problem is that they hired Lynn off just one great season where he caught lightning in a bottle and had the odds on favorite for NFL Defensive ROY. (USC hired another coach based on just one great year: Andy Enfield.) Now folks are judging him on one game for USC. There was nothing in Lynn's previous jobs that indicated him being anything other than a promising young coach:
He was defensive backs coach for the Houston Texans from 2018-2020. They were ranked 26th, 29th and 23rd in passing defense those seasons. He was then hired by the Baltimore Ravens for the same position in 2021 and 2022. They were ranked dead last in the NFL and then 23rd in pass defense. The next season, after he left for UCLA, they were 7th in the league.
We may not know how really good LSU is for a while because they have an easy schedule (including us) the rest of this month. But if they struggle in any of them, we'll know sooner. USC goes to Michigan in a couple weeks, so that could tell us if they are for real. But the bottom line is that Lynn might not be as great a gain for USC or as great a loss for UCLA as some here are claiming. At best, it's premature to say.