Dawgwork paid off for USC football on Wednesday. Defensive line coach Eric Henderson brought home the biggest fish in the pond, landing New Orleans-based defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart in a fierce battle with LSU. Coach Henny went into Brian Kelly’s back yard and won a huge battle for a top defensive player in the 2025 class.
When we consider Eric Henderson’s impact in recruiting at USC, we have to start with the point that his entry into the program — and the coaching staff — occurred after the end of the 2023 NFL season. He wasn’t able to be onboarded in late November or early December after USC’s last regular-season game in 2023, which was on Nov. 18 of that year against UCLA. Henderson didn’t really have enough time or space to be able to make a maximum impact on the trail. It wasn’t anything he realistically could have controlled. Lincoln Riley and D’Anton Lynn were willing to wait a few weeks in the winter to bring aboard Coach Henny in January. Waiting a few weeks to get Henderson on staff was, Riley and Lynn calculated, worth the future benefits he would bring to the program. This Jahkeem Stewart recruiting win affirms the wisdom of the USC coaching staff. Let’s talk more about what this Jahkeem Stewart commitment means for USC football:
SKULL-CRUSHER
Tim Prangley, Trojans Wire
When we talk about “skull-crusher” recruiters, we talk about the biggest of big dogs, the guys who stride into a tough recruitment and prevail. That Eric Henderson landed Jahkeem Stewart for USC is big enough, but going squarely into LSU’s crib and defeating Brian Kelly is the real alpha male move here. This is what it looks like when a recruiter not only takes the big swing, but hits the 500-foot Shohei Ohtani moonshot or the Freddie Freeman grand slam against the Yankees. This is what elite recruiting performance is supposed to look like at USC.
POSITION OF NEED
Tim Prangley,…
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