65 thoughts on “Clay Helton Question Of The Day

  1. It would be interesting to know who turned the job down or didn’t even want to interview, before we answer this question. Or who wasn’t approached.

    • Those aren’t the type of questions that an outsider like Wolf can answer. He doesn’t dig for that stuff.

      • Scott always grabs for the low hanging fruit…. and when I say low, I mean LOW…….

        • lulz. SC played fine, but don’t get carried away. That wasn’t a great UCLA team on Saturday by any stretch.

          • They weren’t great the last 3 years either, yet they rolled us. We rolled them on Saturday.

          • Both teams were ravaged by injuries. Neither team is great. USC’s defense was exposed against Oregon, yet the defensive adjustments made by USC were the difference in this game.

            Once USC started pressuring the chosen one, the game changed. To say ucla played terrible is a cop out.

          • Having trust in the secondary to play man coverage, and have an extra rusher, made all the difference in not allowing Rosen to get comfortable in the pocket….

          • But your all-star QB, Rosen, said the exact same thing about the USC defense…that they’re not that great…

      • This is what has bothered me about the idea of hiring Helton. Losses to Notre Dame and Oregon, and a win over a UCLA team starting a true freshman QB, missing its biggest defensive stars. If Helton really was the best option available, then so be it, but you have to wonder.

        Still, I thought we would see a re-run of Haden passing over the relatively popular interim coach in favor of some unexciting Sark-style hire, like Jeff Tedford or something, so at least the players like the guy. It could be worse.

        • Maybe we can get Clancy Pendergast to come back to USC… that man knows how to turn around a defense in a very short period of time…..

          • Turning to the “Kiffin coaching tree,” eh?

            Kind of funny how everybody is now on pins and needles about the DC hire.

          • The DC hire is the most critical hire in order to ensure long term success, IMO….and I wouldn’t necessarily stigmatize CP because he happened to work for Kiffin…..his results speak for themselves…

          • I just think it’s funny that this hire really raised the stakes for the DC situation. Everyone here assumed that Wilcox was gone… but what if he’s not? If Helton keeps Wilcox, people on this board are really going to freak out. Somebody get Fred his heart medication!

          • Time will tell, I suppose….I’m sure that each and every coaching hire by Helton will be receiving severe scrutiny by the USC fans base, as it should….Fred was last seen waiting in line at the local CVS pharmacy for his heart medication prescription to be filled…..

    • I’m in Oregon and media here says SC met with Chip Kelly in Philly on Friday and Chip turned SC down.

      • Apparently Chip is denying that he talked with SC, but I don’t think he said anything one way or the other about communications via his agent. Anyway, after Chip got in trouble with the NCAA, it seems hard to believe that Haden would have made that hire.

  2. I haven’t seen this community in agreement on any issue in a long time. Speaks volumes. Hope the players will play as hard for Clay against the FARM knowing that he’s got the job vs. playing for him to get the job.

    • The players love and and several high profile recruits are Tweeting good things about the hire…several former players are also supporting the hire, with a few disgruntled former Trojans chiming in

  3. So where are all those posters who said SC was spending $10M a year for the best coach ever? I find this hire ponderous.

    • At least we all know Helton knows how to make ucla and Mora look silly. You should be familiar with ponderous, the perfect description for ucla football.

      • Once in 4 years is fine. But is that your new bar at SC? Beating an ok UCLA team? Man how times have changed.

        • Ya, the little gutties are back where you belong as usual, losers again.

          USC – 47, ucla – 31. Some things never change little bruin. You’ll never catch USC. Boo hoo. Cry me a river. Did you little gutties gain 11 yds in the 4th Q? Ya, that’s what I thought.

  4. USC was very interested in Harbaugh and asked for some type of assurance from him that he would be serious about the job. He wouldn’t give it to USC so they moved on. No way Kelly, also spoken to, was ever coming.

    If there was ever a time to expect Haden to step down, expect it now. He hasn’t been going to any USC games, is restricted from airplane travel, and now that he made the hire he wanted, good or bad – he did it his way. I think it’s that last thing he wanted to do while officially the AD. Just IMHO.

  5. Email the athletic department to voice your discontent.

    Heather Dunn (dunnh@usc.edu). She apparently answers messages for Haden.

  6. Helton may very well be a great coach. Must be nobody better was interested and no point in waiting. A lot of NFL guys will be looking for jobs in a month. Seems an impatient decision.

  7. Great hire for a ton of good reasons. Lot of the examples why can be found in the game against the bruins – benching Mama for disciplinary reasons with an already thinned line, handling the loss of the 3rd sting center, demanding that Wilcox play man coverage and blitz more, out-coaching Mora into a tail spin.
    Fight On!

    • Right, as usual, bro. I think some fans are discounting what would have happened to the chemistry this team has developed over the last six weeks if Clay WEREN’T hired. There is more to a coaching search than just forcing a big name down a team’s throat —just as there is more to football than thinking every 5 star is going to come thru for you. Clay is the right hire for this team…and, based on the guy’s unquestioned work ethic, he will continue to grow and get even better. Why? Because being the Head Coach at USC matters more than anything else in the world to him.

  8. I like Helton and wish him success. It would’ve been nice to have hired a proven HC though.

        • Why now? To immediately lock in key recruits, to pump the present squad and to bring stability to a program that desperately needs it NOW…..not at the end of the NFL season (when there are no guarantees of getting who we want, anyway).

          • We don’t need stability. We need to rebuild. This program has been in the crapper for a while now and this ensures at least three more years of mediocrity.

          • No need for stability? That’s a new one. All rebuilding starts with stability. You need both.

          • Kiffin was a former assistant, Sark was a former assistant, and now Helton. We don’t need more stability. We need to start over.

          • David, Helton’s ability is not tied to Sark and Kiffin – they are all different people even though they were USC assistants. There is no way we need to start over – USC has been rising with new recruits post-sanctions and next year will be in a position to challenge. Yes we need a replacement of about half the assistants but that is not starting over. And stability is most critical – look at what these seniors have gone through in the last 4-5 years.

          • That’s amazing that you can predict Helton’s firing in 3 years before he’s coached a single game as head coach or put together a team of assistants. Well, you’ve come to the right place to make irrational statements anyway.

          • Have you heard of John McKay and John Robinson? Two USC Head Coaches who had zero head-coached games on their resume before being named Head Coach.

        • The players and recruits LOVE him….I’m not really sure how I proved your point, but who would you have rather we wait for?

    • That’s true —a bunch of people are waiting to jump on Helton if he fails against Stanford. But guess what? They’re the same bunch who jumped on him after he SUCCEEDED against UCLA. Take away? (1) Helton will bring lots of wins our way next year no matter what happens against Stanford on Saturday, (2) you can’t please everybody.

  9. Waiting to see what some ex-players think esp. Rikki Ellison – on this hire. K. Johnson every Friday for some 20-30 minutes on Max and Marcellus 710 AM. I’ll bet Marcus Allen likes this move – back to our legacy – hard run game with some passing and eating up that clock as well as wearing down the opponent’s defensive front line.

    Hopefully for Pat Haden and all of us, this is a great move – it absolves him from the Sark mess regardless of the time lost (1.5 seasons) – it also finally rids us of the PC assistant coaches cavalcade.

  10. Wonder how we feel about this hire if we get our butts spanked Saturday. Sentiment seems to flow for Helton based on each weeks performance.

  11. I am so happy about the hire I am having my manicurist do a gold CH on the cardinal background on each of the nails on my fingers and toes. The special shoes are Goccia custom boots and I will be wearing Madova leather gloves. You won’t be able to see my nails, but if you ask nicely, I might take off a glove and show you my support for Head Coach Clay Helton. I have a great outfit picked out, it’s all white and accented in Cardinal and Gold. It’s very Roman looking, quite elegant. My coat is by Pierotucci. Here’s my post from a few weeks back, “Clay Helton is the best hire for HC, whether or not he wins the remaining games this season; (i) he has proved himself to be a very strong CEO/COO, (ii) he has proved himself to be very media savvy, (iii) he has proved himself to be letter perfect when dealing with alums, fans and the powers that be, (iv) the players LOVE him and will do anything for him, such as playing with a torn ACL, PCL or Meniscus, or five days following hand surgery, (v) he is totally a TROJAN, (vi) as HC he can retain or replace any of the current coaches, and (vii) it is always BETTER to have the man you know rather than the man you don’t know.” With respect to those of you that are not yet onboard with this great, fantastic hire (or worse, spewing vile), the ship is leaving port. Get onboard or get left behind. FIGHT ON!!! USC 38 Stanford 20.

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