USC Football Avoids Academic Ineligibility Trouble In 2016

USC football will go into the 2016 season with the full compliment of players, with no Trojans lost to academic ineligibility.

Good news Trojan fans. Academically, USC football is in great shape entering the 2016 season.

“We are under the anticipation that everybody is going to be eligible,” head coach Clay Helton said after Fall Camp practice on Friday.

Helton’s declaration is unofficial of course. Summer classes ended this week but grades won’t be final until next Wednesday.

Still, the head coach has been confident since the beginning of camp that none of his athletes will miss the season due to grades.

“That’s a great credit to Magdi and his crew,” said Helton, crediting the work of Senior Associate Athletics Director Dr. Magdi El Shahawy and his staff at Student-Athlete Academic Services.

It has been a number of years since USC began the season without any academic casualties.

Last year, tight end Jalen Cope-Fitzpatrick missed his second straight season due to grades at the most inopportune time. The Trojans were still unsure about the status of fellow tight end Bryce Dixon, who had been kicked off the team and out of school for a student-conduct issue. Over the summer a judge blocked Dixon’s expulsion but the athletic department held firm on keeping him from rejoining the football team.

On top of missing Dixon, USC lost Randal Telfer to graduation. Cope-Fitzpatrick’s ineligibility could not have come at a worse time for the tight end position.

More from Reign of Troy

• Markese Stepp enters transfer portal intending to leave USC football
• USC football’s Alijah Vera-Tucker declares for NFL Draft
• USC football adds Xavion Alford as transfer from Texas
• USC Podcast: RoT Radio Ep. 396 on the Football Season’s Fallout
• Talanoa Hufanga named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, USC football with five first-teamers

This time, it’s a rival tight end who has created headlines because of grades. Notre Dame’s Alize Jones, the projected starter at tight end, was declared ineligible last week and will miss the season.

A note of warning, however. Irish head coach Brian Kelly had indicated that he expected no eligibility troubles a week before Jones’ ineligibility was announced.

The Trojans have had other academic troubles of their own in the past. Predecessors to Cope-Fitzpatrick on the academic problem train include cornerback Isaiah Wiley in 2012, receiver Markeith Ambles in 2011 and running back Curtis “Moody” McNeal in 2010.

At the moment, it appears that USC has everything in order on the academic end.

Now if the Trojans could just figure out how to keep everyone available in the injury department.