Sunday Night With Helton

USC coach Clay Helton said tonight the Trojans are going through “growing pains” on shotgun snaps with No. 3 center Khaliel Rodgers. Helton said he is now going 50-50 between the shotgun and under-center snaps. But he said the shotgun is necessary because it makes pass blocking easier.

Helton said JuJu Smith-Schuster was “bouncing around” the McKay Center today but that he has not been 100-percent healthy “from Week 5 on.”

Helton said Smith-Schuster ran a great route on the play where Cody Kessler fumbled, so we will never know what could have happened on the play.

68 thoughts on “Sunday Night With Helton

    • It’s Browne… You can’t spell your own name, “Albarado” and now you are butchering your backup’s name… You are the typical southern cal fan!

  1. We will also never know if SoCal could have beaten Oregon if the Sarkisian were still the Head Coach.

    • Yeah kind of like we will never know when UCLA will win another CG in mens basketball if Harrick hadn’t been fired.

      Man they’re not even ranked – talk about a fading legacy….

      • Speaking of unranked how about SoCal football?
        Pre-season # 8 and now unranked. Was it sanctions, Al? Speaking of other sports, SoCal is a Tennis school now. Even their only other men’s sport, Water Polo is our pool toy. UCLA 31 an 0 and only a big fat under-the-table check will get SC Polo into the NCAA tournament. You don’t even know who your Athletic Director will be next year, let alone your fading legacy of a football team. How does it feel to get beat 3 years in a row in football (and every other men’s sport but tennis) by an academically superior basketball school?

        • Yeah but come on bonzo – you’re the one posting here – after all no one give a rip about the flip side of this website.

          As to academic superior claim – nah unless you mean your WEHO recocgnized GLBT programs – now there is tax dollars well spent and you’re second to none….

          • Albarado, just practice your punting cause the pain is coming … you tell them Bruins are coming and hell is coming with them!

          • Claim??
            Wow, you are drinking the Koolaid. I can always tell a direct hit on a trojan in denial because they either claim SoCal is equal academically OR go with the Sam Gilbert line.
            Direct hit!

      • As opposed to the KU Toejam Men’s Basketball legacy. That legacy graded on a scale of 1 – 10 (10 being best) rates a 1.5.

  2. Let me see, Clay Helton said lining up in the shotgun makes it easier for the offensive line to pass block ? But hasn’t pass blocking been USC’S weakness all season long? And hasn’t every opponent been in Cody Kessler’s face , forcing him to pass on the run most of the time? I wonder how difficult it would have been for Helton to emphasize the run when he took over for Steve Sarkisian ? Because it appeared SC could have run the ball on most of their opponents this season.

  3. A little rivalry week fun!

    Q: how do you starve a USC football player?

    A: you hide his food money in his textbook!

    • Xtracrazy32 Thats a oldie but good one it made me think about when i almost went to ucla, then my dad got a job

  4. Excuse making southern cal already laying down excuses for this Saturday’s beatdown. With Kiffin it was the Sanctions! With Sark it was the drunkenness! Helton, it is Injuries… What a bunch of losers!

  5. I have almost all negative things to say about USC, always, but that JuJu is one tough mo fo.

  6. Helton will make a great head coach someday. I hear Missouri is looking for a nice guy. I think it is too bad we couldn’t judge him based on his staff’s work instead we saw what he could do with inferior staff and superior players.
    I would suggest going after Oregon’s coach, but his defensive coach is as bad if not worse than Wilcox.
    So I don’t have a realistic candidate in mind. Coaches being brought up because of their abilities are already engaged. Whoever is hired had better hit the ground running.

  7. The unathletic Cody Kessler lacks the footwork to drop back and pass… And the running backs aren’t smart enough to pick up the blitzes… recipe for another beatdown this Saturday! Maybe this time you need to lock the coliseum before the Bruins come in!

  8. Again, this all goes back to coaching and putting players in a position to succeed. It seems to me that the shotgun snap from center has been an issue the last two seasons, begging the question, why keep doing it? Over the last two years how many plays have been screwed up because of this? USC had a real chance to get back into the game with the score 38-28 and they had the moment. Bad snap, fumble, another Adams TD pass, and that’s the ball game.

    • LOL. The shotgun is basic football in High School football. Almost every High School team in America uses it exclusively. Yet USC can’t do it?

  9. GROWING PAINS? Sorry Helton, that doesn’t cut it at this late date. Quit your crying and nut-up. If you have any hope of staying USC’s coach, and if your players who love you so much want you to stay, you will quit crying and making excuses and tell Justin Wilcox to rush 4 guys and sometimes a 5th and you will win this game on Saturday. Enough B – S.

  10. The bottom line is the current SC team under Helton just doesn’t have what it takes to win major championships. Yes, of course it’s not all on Helton, because the staff wasn’t assembled by him. But someone should tell me why and how the future teams will do better with him than with a new HC having a fresh new start with a new staff. The undeniable truth is we just don’t have enough body of work from Helton to anoint him with the job, which is of tremendous importance at this juncture of our football program. WE NEED HC WITH PROVEN RECORD AND CREDENTIALS!!!

    • It all flows back to Sarkisian – he assembled this staff – these were almost all of them his picks.

      The program needs to rid itself of any assistant from the PC era and begin fresh with either a great assistant out of the NFL or a current college HC that has produced a minimum of two years.

      • I think you and I can agree the best guy for the job is Harbaugh. Let’s hope it happens.

        • Probably – then again should Helton somehow run the table w. victories over: UCLA, Stanford and the Big-10 rep in the Rose Bowl with an average qb (Kessler) a turgid offensive line, and most telling an already chaotic coaching staff who knows?

          That would be Haden’s worst nightmare – does he retain Helton or not?

          A soap opera with so many personalities and variables winging their way should Helton somehow win out.

          • The likelihood of all of those things happening seems to be quite low looking at the current state of the team, but crazy things do happen, and yes, there will be a high amount of pressure to retain Helton if he indeed wins out, including Pac-12 Championship and Rose Bowl. But again, it’s almost a mission impossible for Helton at this point.

          • You are right, it is because I don’t see any real change in coaching skill nor by players by this Saturday.

  11. The shotgun works in two hand touch football. Oh wait! and for just about every other football team who uses it! Please. Helton is just being polite and doesn’t want to out Bob Connelly.

    • Bro, we wouldn’t hear that kind of excuse from the guys like John Harbaugh. That’s for sure. LOL!!!

      • Exactly. I understand our line is missing three starters, but Connelly sux and it’s just time for a real coach to lead this team and a real staff to prepare them because this BS has to stop.

    • I thought USC did well out of the “I” and it has always looked to me that the play action out of that formation gave the QB time to throw. Of course line play comes into the picture also.

  12. Hour by hour it looks like Les Miles is going to be available. LSU boosters are making a big play for Jimbo Fisher. If this comes to fruition Haden needs to pull the trigger ASAP. Miles needs a new scene and he could have Orgeron head up recruiting. For those who think Miles couldn’t recruit SoCal, when he was an assistant at Colorado, SoCal was his territory and he brought in some good players from here.

    • I think SC already has its man but won’t make it public for another month. But if Miles could bring in his defensive coaches and go get a really good OC who RUNS & THROWS then Miles could be a good hire. But IMO I think SC has already made their play for a man.

        • Miles would be horrible here with his ancient offensive philosophy. That’s why he’s getting ran outta town.

        • I really believe it’s John Harbaugh. The talk the last few days is SC is in the works not for a “big” name guy, but for a hire that is “huge” and $8-10 Million is said to be the amount. That’s a front of the line coach like someone big who’s won “huge” games like a National Championship or a Super Bowl. And there was talk that SC met with Harbaugh after the Ravens/49ers game and already discussed a potential compensation package and that his wife who has wanted to live in Los Angeles (I think she’s from SoCal) was at this meeting and signed off. This kind of money is forked over for guys like Saban, Meyer, or a Super Bowl winning head coach. Pete only made $4.4M a year. I think this points to a coach that has a ring.

          • That would be awesome. But if we get Harbaugh we won’t be playing MeatChicken in the Rose Bowl, I think it would be the Playoff! But yeah!

        • How can a coach who was let go because of a dismal record at another school be a dynamite hire? I know you like the guy, but I don’t think he’s the guy for us. He’s a guy whose coaching days are numbered, and we wouldn’t want to be where he could enrich his retirement plans.

      • sas, when SC announced Sark as the coach, was it before or after our bowl game that year? I’m brain farting it right now, don’t remember.

      • The 3rd member of Dorey and Mel (710 AM 6-7:00 am)- Anthony aka ‘Booger’ McFarland stated that a week ago Saturday – Miles best days are long past.

  13. This is going to be a long week with all the TROLLS posting on here. And it will get longer should SC lose to the gutties. Ugh. BUT, obviously SC is a THREAT to the fragile make up of the TROLLS. If SC was as weak and bad as the TROLLS say, they would not bother coming here and post. Every TROLL post just shows their weaknesses. They need to put SC down, just to feel good about their stupid selves. They are fragile little creature.

    • Ray, the trolls are not about supporting UCLA, but are lonely individuals who crave for human companionship – even if it is via an insult and response on a sports blog. The best strategy is to just ignore trolls and never respond to them. I know, it’s fun to slam these morons, but like feeding the local stray cat… they keep returning for more… because they crave attention. Silly trolls.

    • Ray, I have found that mostly ignoring and not reading what the poor trolls put on here makes life much better and I have more available time to do other stuff.

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