Oregon defeats USC in blowout
Trojans fumble away their Pac-12 fate in a 56-24 loss.
It’s over now, finally, mercifully, a USC football era ending Saturday night on a field filled with mistakes surrounded by fans teeming with anger.
There’s no way Clay Helton comes back from this.
There’s no way the Trojans football program can continue on like this.
There’s no way this should ever happen at USC, ever, this embarrassing 56-24 whipping at the hands and arms and feet of the vastly superior Oregon Ducks.
On what began as a promising night in a
giddy Coliseum ended amid mostly empty seats and full-throated boos as the Trojans trudged off bearing much more than a loss.
Gone was anything but a remote chance at a Pac-12 title. Gone was the early magic that surrounded freshman Kedon Slovis. Gone was the notion that they had enough running backs to survive all those injuries. Gone was the belief that the defense had finally figured something out.
Gone, completely gone, is the idea that this program can be fixed under its current leadership.
It won’t be. It can’t be. The evidence is glaring.
One season after going 5-7, the Trojans are 5-4 and need to win one of their final three games — two of which are on the road — to even be bowl eligible. Three seasons after leading this team to that inspirational Rose Bowl victory over Penn State, Helton has been buried under bad losses, bad mistakes, unfulfilled potential and a consistent twisting of a proud motto.
These Trojans may still fight on, but they don’t fight smart, they don’t fight with discipline, they don’t fight with focus. And it’s clear, they don’t always fight for Helton, an incredibly nice man who deserves better but won’t get it.
Helton needed to take this team to the Rose Bowl to have any chance of keeping his job, and that’s not happening now. He had one last gasp, but that final breath was swallowed up by a seventh-ranked Oregon team that toyed with the Trojans.
Helton is surely, finally finished. It’s just a matter of when.
Don’t be surprised if, in his first official act as the new athletic director Saturday, Mike Bohn covered his eyes. Also don’t be surprised if, in his next official act, he peered down at his phone for the numbers of a couple of coaches.
Bohn, who comes from the University of Cincinnati, is expected to be officially introduced this week. No, despite what many are thinking, it seems highly unlikely that he would use his opening remarks to fire his football coach.
But expect Bohn’s search to begin immediately, containing names such as Penn State’s James Franklin and Baylor’s Matt Rhule and former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops. Sorry all you Urbanites, but Urban Meyer and his checkered history of poor off-the-field leadership should not be, and is not expected to be, on that list.
Here’s guessing Helton will be given a chance to finish the season, if only because a change this late in the year would cause even more chaos.
If nothing else, Helton will continue to approach his fading job with the sort of passion he revealed during his postgame news conference.
Helton was asked, why do you believe you’re the right coach to lead this program moving forward?
“Thank you for that question, I appreciate you,” he said to the reporter.
Helton then launched into his own defense, saying, “I’ve been here 10 years, and I believe in being a servant to this university and to the young men that are here. Each and every day I wake up and represent them and our school, and I will continue to do that each and every day. I will fight like hell with the people I believe in and the people that I love until they ask me not to do it anymore, all right?”
He added, “I’ll continue to do the only thing I know which is to fight. Thank you for that question.”
He was then asked, did you think you had to win to keep your job?
“I’m not worried about me, I’ve coached and played enough ball for 10 lifetimes,” Helton said. “I’m worried about helping them win a Pac-12 South championship and try to get to the Pac-12 championship.”
He added, “Whatever is written is already written, God already has that plan. Until then, I’m gonna dang fight and help them to win the Pac-12 South.”
If only the Trojans’ performance Saturday contained that sort of determination.
This was a game in which they scored on their first possession, took a 10-0 lead at the end of the first quarter, then fell apart while being outscored 56-14 for the final three quarters.
Slovis threw three interceptions and lost a fumble. The Trojans committed 92 yards worth of penalties. They allowed a touchdown on an interception return. They allowed a touchdown on a 100-yard kick return in the final seconds of the first half.
The Trojan meltdown was epitomized by a sequence of plays that began with 5:42 left in the second quarter with USC leading 10-7.
The Trojans had driven 67 yards to the Oregon threeyard line and were on the verge of scoring when Slovis lost the ball amid a mammoth sack and it was recovered by Oregon’s Brady Breeze. The Ducks then sucked the air out of the Coliseum by driving 92 yards for a touchdown in a sequence that included two damaging USC penalties. It was part of a string of eight consecutive Oregon touchdowns.
“It just added up real quickly,” said Trojan center Brett Neilon. “It was like a blitzkrieg, honestly.”
Honestly, enough is enough. USC needs to end this onslaught of mistakes and misplays and big losses. USC needs to end this era.