Clay Helton returning to Coliseum with Georgia Southern 4 years after his firing from USC
Clay Helton returning to Coliseum with Georgia Southern 4 years after his firing from USC
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Clay Helton twice became the head football coach at Southern California under bizarre circumstances. The folksy assistant stepped up both times to calm the perpetual chaos around the Trojans, whose attempts to recapture their past glories over the past 15 years have usually failed.
Helton then held this perilous job longer than almost anyone expected, coaching 70 games over parts of eight seasons at one of college football’s most prestigious programs until his firing four years ago.
Helton is returning to the venerable Coliseum on Saturday to face USC (1-0) with Georgia Southern (0-1), the Sun Belt school where he landed two months after saying goodbye to the West Coast.
As anyone who knows him would expect, Helton expresses no bitterness about his departure from Los Angeles. He’s excited by the chance to renew his many friendships here while his three children join him for the weekend.
“Anytime you’re at a place for 12 years, the relationships that you build, the gratitude that you have for being a part of a family, the Trojan Family, I have immense gratitude,” Helton said on his weekly television show while his Eagles trained in Oxnard, California. “Looking forward to my family having the opportunity and the honor to walk back into the Coliseum. … Looking forward to be able to hug some people that took great care of my family for 12 years out here.”
Helton and his successor, Lincoln Riley, have built a recent friendship during an annual coaches’ golf tournament at Pebble Beach.
Although Riley arrived in LA with much more fanfare and financial backing, he began the current season with a 26-14 record at USC — two games worse than Helton’s mark over his first 40 games. With Riley now undergoing his own struggles to build a winner at this demanding program, he has a unique understanding of what Helton endured.
“I’ve had the chance to sit down and have some really cool conversations with him, his staff, his wife,” Riley said. “Phenomenal people. … He’s incredibly complimentary of this place. You see the kind of human being he is. It’s pretty special, so I’ve cherished that time.”
Only a few players remain on USC’s roster from Helton’s tenure. Tight end Lake McRee was recruited by Helton’s staff out of Austin, Texas, and he arrived during the spring semester before Helton’s firing.
“He gave me the opportunity to be at this prestigious university, and that’s why I’ve been here the past five years, because of him,” said McRee, who had a 64-yard TD catch last weekend. “Can’t say enough good stuff about him. Great coach, great guy. Cool experience to be with him, even though it wasn’t too long.”
Helton arrived at USC in 2010 as an assistant to Lane Kiffin, and he served as the Trojans’ head coach for the Las Vegas Bowl in 2013 after Kiffin was fired and interim head coach Ed Orgeron quit when Steve Sarkisian was hired over him for the permanent job.
Sarkisian kept Helton on staff, but the future Texas boss only made it into the second month of his second season before being removed due to an increasingly apparent drinking problem. Helton took over again as a stopgap, but a 5-1 surge in late 2015 prompted athletic director Pat Haden to make the promotion permanent.
USC had success in Helton’s first two seasons largely because of Sam Darnold, the superb college quarterback who went third overall in the 2018 draft. Darnold’s teams won the Rose Bowl and the Pac-12 title in consecutive years — but many fans had already soured on Helton because the Trojans lost three games in each season and weren’t in the national title race.
Helton’s tenure fell apart with a 5-7 season in 2018, but athletic director Lynn Swann surprised everyone by keeping him. Swann’s departure in September 2019 and the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic delayed the seemingly inevitable to 2021, when Helton was fired by athletic director Mike Bohn after Week 2.
Riley got the job a few months later, and he started 11-1 before going 15-13 in his next two-plus seasons. Riley began his fourth season last weekend with a 73-13 pasting of Missouri State, but his Trojans still aren’t ranked in the AP Top 25.
“This is a unique job,” Riley said. “It’s a unique place. Anybody that’s been in this, whether it’s Clay, whether it’s Pete (Carroll), whether it’s people in other sports, there’s just so many people that care about this place and love this place and have such unique experiences. It would be crazy to not tap into that.”
Helton emerged from the USC blender with his love for football intact, and he has led Georgia Southern to three straight bowl games.
While the Eagles are big underdogs Saturday after getting drilled 42-14 by Fresno State in their opener last weekend, Helton knows this week will be memorable for his players, who will tour the Coliseum on Friday.
“It’s great for our players, great for our coaches, great for me,” Helton said. “We’ll go down Friday and I’ll hug some people, but Saturday is game day.”
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
By GREG BEACHAM
AP Sports Writer
