LOS ANGELES — As soon as Greedy Vance Jr. got a handle on USC’s new scheme, he didn’t want to see what anyone else had to offer. After the 5-foot-11 Florida State cornerback hit the spring portal in early April and committed to USC more than a week later, his arrival created an immediate surplus of luxury resource.
Vance Jr. started five games with the Seminoles last year, a program that came a very public snub away from a dream College Football Playoff appearance; suddenly, with a few months before fall camp, he was walking into a USC room already brimming with two experienced transfers, three veteran returners and a stockpile of eager freshmen. But USC had a slight need, still, for depth, after cornerback Tre’Quon Fegans transferred.
And Vance saw, from a distance, how defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn orchestrated a one-year revitalization at UCLA in 2023. He didn’t mind competition. So USC got Greedy.
“That was the thing to me, knowing that this group can be very special, knowing that this team was 8-5 last year and they was a couple of stops on defense away,” Vance Jr. said in late July at USC’s media day. “They got a new staff, they confident in what they want to do, what they’ve been asked to do.
” “So I feel like, being a part of this will be special.” Really, the program was more than a couple of stops away last year, the secondary in particular simmering with such dysfunction that players visibly threw their hands up over multiple communi.