I asked Clay Helton why it took offensive tackle E.J. Price so long to transfer from USC to Kentucky.
“In E.J.’s case, there was some school work that needed to be done for eligibility,” Helton said. “I’m really happy for him to take the next step.”
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That’s the one question you asked him…? great work for “Inside Worthless Crap”
Easy, RoseBowlBound. SW actually interviewed USC’s Head Coach and received an informative answer. Journalism as it should be.
One can only hope….Fight On!
Some things never change do they Petey.
Hopa, hopa, hopa, choka, choka, choka, excuses, excuses, excuses.
Better to choka and be a has-been then be a never (UCLA Football or Mora) Was. One National Championship and that was shared.
Trojans will be ranked #3 with big expectations for the season.
Ucla will watch as other teams or a team from the Pac-12 play in the Rose Bowl CFB Seminal game.
Can you be a choker if nothing is expected from you?
USC is a contender. High hopes of a being National Champs.
“In E.J.’s case, there was some school work to be done for eligibility. I’m really super duper pooper happy for him to take the next step.”
all of this reporting makes me feel like i wasnt even at the media day,
eddie, I have sad news for you, you weren’t at the Pac 12 Media day.
Not like Eddie to get things so wrong…..
For me, this is Clay Helton’s genuinely winning quality. He really does want the guys to do well, at USC ideally, but somewhere! This is very appropriate at a top 25 university, don’t you think? If this were the Rams, I would not see it this way.
You will never get any decent inside info on this blog because all of Scott’s best sources are long gone (i.e. Orgeron), but the skinny from Ryan’s site is that Tee and Helton were concerned that if he was kicked out or left the program in the fall he would have to go the Junior College route, and they believed that Price would wash out at a Southern JUCO because he doesn’t have a particularly strong support network. So they encouraged him to stay in school for the year and take full advantage of the academic resources so that he can transfer to another D-I school. That Price was receptive to that shows well on the kid.
Note that a lot of the above might be self-serving BS. There is a lot of puff and exaggeration on Ryan’s site, but sometimes, like in this case, it makes sense, logically, even if it isn’t the full truth.
A commenter on Ryan’s site said that this is something encouraged by the Pac-12, that schools should encourage “at-risk” athletes to at least stay in school for the entire school year rather than allowing them to leave school mid-term. Not so sure that is the case, but it is a policy that all power five school should pursue.
Also, “at-risk” doesn’t include athletes who violate student-conduct rules or the law, like Dixon/Masina/Hill/Boermeister. At-risk are the borderline kids like Price, Scott and Jefferson who meet the NCAA eligibility minimums but aren’t emotionally or academically ready for the college. It seems that Jefferson wasn’t interested (couldn’t even get grades at a JUCO to be able to transfer to Arizona), and Scott just couldn’t do it (after a two years he still has to transfer to a JUCO). So hats of to EJ, who was 2000 miles away from what little family and few friends he had, to suck it up, hunker down and avoid the JUCO route.
Phew. So glad that got settled. I was really curious about the mechanics of his transfer.