College Football: 10 most disappointing teams of 2018

3. USC

It wasn’t a shock with the roster turnover the Trojans faced from last season that USC wouldn’t make it back to a New Year’s Six Bowl for the third season in a row, but they were still expected to be a competitive team in the PAC-12.

USC came into the season ranked 15th in both major polls, and were widely considered the favorite to win the PAC-12 South.

Led by a true freshman QB in J.T. Daniels, and with substandard line play that culminated in a complete inability to run the ball, the Men of Troy struggled mightily on offense throughout the 2018 season.

USC lost two of their first three games to Stanford and Texas, but racked up three straight PAC-12 wins, including a win over Washington State. AT 4-2, the Trojans bottomed out and lost five of their last six games to finish 5-7, their first season finishing below .500 since 2000, one season before Pete Carroll took over in Los Angeles.

Athletic Director Lynn Swann defied popular opinion by reaffirming his faith in Clay Helton as the team’s head coach. The rest of USC’s coaching staff might look completely different next season, but Helton will remain in charge for at least one more year.

It isn’t crazy that they would give Helton another year considering he led the team to back-to-back double-digit win seasons in his first two full seasons on the sidelines at the Coliseum; one bad year didn’t, and shouldn’t have, caused Swann to lose faith that Helton was the right man for the job.

Helton’s onus will be further developing Daniels and getting USC back to the top of the PAC-12 quickly, because while he has the confidence of his AD, Helton can ill-afford another mediocre season if he wants to be the head coach of the Trojans for the long haul.