Helton ousted by USC after loss to Stanford
LOS ANGELES – Clay Helton’s unlikely tenure as the head football coach at Southern California began bizarrely and lasted far longer than almost anybody expected. The folksy Southerner won a Rose Bowl and a Pac-12 title early on, but he never won over most of the Trojans’ fans.
And after one more embarrassing defeat for a school only interested in championships, USC finally moved on.
Helton was fired on Monday, two games into his seventh season in charge. Athletic director Mike Bohn made the move two days after a 42-28 home loss to Stanford that sent the Trojans plummeting out of the AP Top 25.
Donte Williams, the Trojans’ cornerbacks coach and associate head coach, is taking over. Williams, a Los Angelesarea native and the first Black head coach in USC football history, joined the program in 2020 and has played a major role in the Trojans’ significant recruiting advancements over the past two cycles.
USC (1-1, 0-1 Pac-12) visits Washington State this weekend for its road opener. Helton went 46-24 during his improbable seven years in charge of a longtime West Coast college football powerhouse with 11 national championships. The career assistant coach twice took over as USC’s interim coach before permanently getting his first head coaching job late in the 2015 season.
“Clay is one of the finest human beings
I have met in this industry, and he has been a tremendous role model and mentor to our young men,” Bohn said in a statement. “We appreciate his many years of service to our university and wish him nothing but the very best.”
While Helton brought stability to a tumultuous football culture and ran a clean program that inspired loyalty and love from his players, he never won over a significant portion of the Trojans’ vast fan base. His genteel manner didn’t inspire confidence in fans used to Pete Carroll’s intensity, while Helton’s Texas twang and aw-shucks demeanor often seemed out of place in Los Angeles.
The Trojans won the Rose Bowl after the 2016 season and the Pac-12 title in 2017 while Sam Darnold was their quarterback, but the rest of Helton’s tenure was disappointing.