The inside linebackers have bonded through competition and developed a trust in hopes of transforming the Trojans' defense
LOS ANGELES — Easton Mascarenas-Arnold already has a brother, of sorts, on USC’s roster.
He’s lived with Akili Arnold for a decade, since their parents got married in 2012, the two melding into a two-headed unit so inseparable they came from Oregon State to USC as a package deal in the transfer portal. The linebacker and safety butt heads. They mirror each other. Blood, as Mascarenas-Arnold said in the spring, couldn’t possibly make them closer.
But Mascarenas-Arnold has found another blood brother in fellow USC linebacker Mason Cobb.
“We’re the same,” Mascarenas-Arnold smiled of Cobb, sitting at a table last Wednesday at USC’s fall-camp-opening media day. “We’re the same person.”
A ferocious competition begun as they shared a room in the spring, finding they were cut from the same cloth, two tough-minded veteran ball-hawks of respective Pacific Islander and Polynesian descent. And Mascarenas-Arnold and Cobb tested each other incessantly on spring practice fields and in weight rooms, sled pulls and sprints.
Within a handful of months, USC’s newest inside-linebacker tandem has become such a seamless fit that they’ve taken to calling themselves “Yin-Yang.” If one is down, both described, they pick the other up. Everything Cobb does, Mascarenas-Arnold said, he follows. And vice versa.
“He has that same fire I do,” Cobb said, grinning last Wednesday. “Playing linebacker with someone like that – it just elevates your game.”
And Cobb’s game was noticeably decompressed at times last season, in the midst of a defense-wide breakdown that saw frequent cycling in USC’s linebacker room. After arriving as an All-Big-12 second-team selection from Oklahoma State in 2023, Cobb quickly assumed such a highly touted leadership role that he was selected alongside Caleb Williams to represent USC at 2023’s Pac-12 Football Media Day. He racked up a team-leading 85 tackles as the starting mike – but also missed nearly twice as many tackles, according Pro Football Focus, as anyone on the roster.
Adding Mascarenas-Arnold – a natural communicator, a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2023, a natural fit at mike – has eased Cobb’s burden, new linebackers coach Matt Entz asserted. No more checks going through him, when he’s lining up alongside Mascarenas-Arnold. No more adjustments.
“By taking some things off his plate or out of his hands, we’ve created clarity, allowed him to get his cleats in the ground and play fast,” Entz said of Cobb last Wednesday. “And that’s what we need.”
“We need him to play fast, because he can make big-time plays.”
Cobb, for one, disagreed with the notion he was overwhelmed at times with communication in 2023. His struggles – beyond injury, which caused him to miss a couple games – came down to personnel, he felt.
USC started six different combinations at inside linebacker in the regular season. It was a constant question, as Cobb described, who would start next to him. Or in front of him. Trust was limited.
“It was just, not feeling that somebody that knew what they was doing next to me,” Cobb said. “In practice – you build trust in practice, and I didn’t feel like I had that. Maybe that would make me jump out of gaps sometimes, or try and make a play that wasn’t my play.”
Enter Mascarenas-Arnold. When he first arrived, the Oregon State transfer said, he cold tell Cobb felt “uneasy” with the amount on his plate. And it was hard to play next to someone, as Mascarenas-Arnold said, “if you don’t entirely trust in their capabilities mentally.”
“I think him knowing, like, I’m going to give the defense the call, he can worry about his assignments,” Mascarenas-Arnold said of Cobb, “and then once all that’s done we can look at each other and be like, ‘Yo, watch out for this, watch out for this.’”
Tackett Curtis, who started next to Cobb last season as a true freshman, is gone, transferring to Wisconsin. And lanky Eric Gentry, who shone down the stretch, is back, as is veteran Raesjon Davis. But Mascarenas-Arnold and Cobb are the clear favorites as a starting tandem, the yin-yang brothers taking the field together at inside linebacker for USC’s spring game April 20.
“We’ve built some big trust in the spring,” Cobb said, “and I’m excited about this, this fall.”
