Revisiting the Clay Helton era at USC before anticipated return

Week 2 of the college football season brings Clay Helton back to Los Angeles, as the Georgia Southern head coach returns to face his former program at USC following a tough week one loss to Fresno State. Helton’s homecoming stirs mixed emotions as he’s widely regarded as one of the sport’s genuine “nice guys,” respected and well-liked across the college football landscape. Yet for many Trojan fans, the frustration lingers. Helton is still seen as the architect of years of underachievement, and Lincoln Riley continues working to undo the lingering effects of a program that was mismanaged during Helton’s tenure.

Clay Helton took over at USC midway through the 2015 season after the firing of Steve Sarkisian and was named the permanent head coach soon after. His first full season came in 2016, and over the next five years he experienced both highs and lows with the Trojans.

The peak of Helton’s tenure came early. In 2016, USC captured the Pac-12 title and capped the season with a thrilling Rose Bowl victory over Penn State, widely remembered as one of the greatest bowl games ever played. The following year, the Trojans won 11 games, one more than the previous season, though they fell to Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.

From there, however, the program began to slide. USC stumbled to a disappointing 5–7 record in 2018, missing a bowl game entirely but retaining Helton for two more seasons. In 2019, the Trojans finished 8–5, capped by a Holiday Bowl loss. The pandemic-shortened 2020 season offered a brief resurgence, as USC went 5–1 before losing to Oregon in a makeshift Pac-12 Championship Game. Helton’s highest AP ranking with USC came in 2016, when the Trojans reached No. 3 nationally.

By 2021, patience had run out. After an early-season 42–28 loss at home to a struggling Stanford team, USC parted ways with Helton, officially closing the chapter on one of the most polarizing eras in program history.

Clay Helton coached a number of elite players during his time in Los Angeles. Notable names include Sam Darnold, Adoree’ Jackson, and JuJu Smith-Schuster. Both Jackson and Talanoa Hufanga earned All-American honors under his watch, while the wide receiver room may have been the most impressive of all, featuring future NFL standouts Drake London, Smith-Schuster, Michael Pittman Jr., and Amon-Ra St. Brown in Cardinal and Gold.

Meaningful matchup for USC fans

Over the course of Clay Helton’s tenure, recruiting standards declined, expectations slipped, and USC was ultimately set back by an administration too stubborn to make a change. For many Trojan faithful, Saturday’s matchup against Georgia Southern feels like the symbolic closing of a difficult chapter. Much has changed since Helton last paced the Coliseum sidelines, and Lincoln Riley and his staff have almost entirely rebuilt the roster, leaving only a handful of holdovers from the Helton era. Yet the scars remain. For USC, this weekend represents more than just another non-conference game. It’s an opportunity to move forward once and for all, leaving behind the tumultuous era that defined the program’s struggles.