When redshirt senior linebacker Eric Gentry was asked about his teammate senior defensive end Anthony Lucas’ first two collegiate sacks, he was shocked.

“That’s Ant’s first two?” was Gentry’s first reaction. After the clarification, his second was all praise.

“He’s a freak of nature,” Gentry said in a post-practice news conference Wednesday. “I’m beyond proud of him. This is just the start of what he’s got going on.”

It had been a long time coming for Lucas before he earned both his first and second sacks in USC (2-0)’s dominant 59-20 win over Georgia Southern University (0-2) on Saturday. Lucas had appeared in 27 collegiate games — 19 for USC — before getting his first sack.

“It was good for a few of those to happen. He’s been really, really close,” Head Coach Lincoln Riley said in a postgame news conference Saturday. “Sometimes when something like that doesn’t happen, you can start chasing it, and when you do that, you don’t play as well … So, cool to see him do that.”

While Lucas attributed his sacks to executing Defensive Coordinator D’Anton Lynn’s game plan, he said getting his first sack allows him to “trust the playbook a little bit more” now that he has gotten the individual results.

“A lot of times, coaches are making sure that my head’s in the game and not chasing the play, not trying to gamble, letting me know that the play’s gonna come to [me],” Lucas said in a post-practice news conference Wednesday. “Surely, [it]they did come.”

Lucas, a five-star recruit out of high school, appeared in seven games and collected seven tackles for Texas A&M in 2022 before transferring to USC and appearing in every game as a sophomore, including one start, but only racking up 10 tackles.

During a breakout six-tackle game against Penn State in October of a 2024 campaign that was looking to put Lucas back on the map, the defensive end suffered a season-ending “lower extremity” injury and underwent surgery ahead of the 2025 season. 

“Hate it for Anthony because he’s really improved and had a really strong impact on our defense,” Riley said at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times.

At the time of his injury, Lucas had started all six games for USC and led the team in pressures by four with 12. Due to his recovery process, Lucas didn’t practice in full pads again until fall camp. 

“I was trying to start back where I left off,” Lucas said in a July news conference when asked about his recovery. “[I’ll] try to make sure I don’t leave anything on the table this last time around.”

Coming back from injury, Lucas has already established himself as a key veteran piece for USC’s new-look pass rush, which has sacked opposing quarterbacks nine times in just the first two games.

“He’s done a good job fighting back,” Riley said after Saturday’s game. “He’s just getting healthier, more confident by the day. I think his best ball is going to be ahead of him this season.”

Lynn said Lucas has performed well in the pass rush at practice and said he was happy to see him get his first collegiate sacks.

“He’s a guy that can rush from different angles. He could rush off the edge. He could rush inside. We can do some stuff with him off the ball,” Lynn said in a post-practice news conference Wednesday. “He’s been affecting the quarterback since he got here, but it was good for him to finally get the results.”

Lucas and the Trojans will face off against Purdue (2-0) at 8 p.m. Saturday in West Lafayette, Indiana.