A week after Willie Taggart fired both his coordinators, South Florida reportedly has its next defensive coordinator.
ESPN’s Derek Tyson first reported Monday morning USF will hire Ole Miss linebackers coach/special teams coordinator Tom Allen to be its defensive coordinator. Allen, a 22-year coaching veteran, coached defense with current Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze at NAIA-level Lambuth in 2008-2009, at Arkansas State in 2010 and in Oxford from 2012-2014.
At Ole Miss, Allen coached a pair of all-SEC linebackers in Denzel Nkemdiche and Serderius Bryant. He’ll have less talent to work with at USF -- which returns six starters on defense but is 6-18 in the last two seasons -- but it’ll be his first shot at being an FBS-level defensive coordinator.
Taggart’s former defensive coordinator, Chuck Bresnahan, was fired after his second year on the job. USF’s defense ranked No. 101 in defensive F/+, a major regression from its No. 56 defensive F/+ ranking in 2013. Allen certainly has his work cut out for him, but has ties to the state of Florida that could pay off.
