Justin Wilcox isn't one for kicking chairs.
One 452-yard rushing game and one 510-yard passing game later the USC defensive coordinator is using his words and examples to try to educate as opposed to any emotionally filled rah-rah speech with a lot of kicking and screaming he can give to his defense.
"Emotion as a coach?" Wilcox asked. "Absolutely you get emotional but for us to sit around and kick a chair for 48 hours if we're not helping them win, that's not productive to me.
"I can sit here and give you all the adjectives but we can get angry and it should hurt but getting angry and screaming, if you don't tell them how to fix the problem, if you don't coach the situation, the technique, people turn you off," Wilcox said.
What's productive at this moment, Wilcox feels, is the teaching and explaining to a defense that has been pretty up and down this season.
This is a USC defense that held the second ranked rushing offense in the conference, Arizona State, to just 31 yards on the ground last weekend. It's the same unit that gave up 452 yards on the ground to Boston College.
This is a USC defense that held the Pac-12's longest tenured starter -- Oregon State's Sean Mannion -- to the worst outing of his career and the next week allowed Mike Bercovici, in just his second career start, to throw for 510 yards.
"We play great pass defense one week and we were not physical we were soft in the run game against Oregon State no matter what the stats say," Wilcox said. "This next week we played very physical in the run game. The explosive passes were the difference in the game. It was not even close. It doesn't mean it's the D-line versus the DB's. Everybody's involved."
A message Wilcox delivers to his defense is "DYJ" or Do Your Job but with that comes a need within the unit for players to want to step up and make a play. He's not seeing that enough, he says.
"The mentality of 'I'm going to be the one to make the play,' I think that's a mental thing," Wilcox said. "It's confidence. It's an attitude. It's how you approach your life. Put it on me, I'm going to make a play."
They're going to have to take that mentality into Tucson if they want to have a shot at slowing down Arizona's high powered passing attack led by wide receivers Cayleb Jones and Austin Hill.
