USC Football: Clock is ticking loudly on Clay Helton’s future
By Zach Bigalke
After falling in overtime at BYU, the seat is getting rather toasty underneath Clay Helton. Will the USC football coach last until the end of the season?
Six years ago, Lane Kiffin was fired from his job as the USC head coach on the airport tarmac after a heartbreaking 62-41 loss in Tempe against Arizona State. After falling in Provo to BYU this week, Clay Helton might start developing an acute fear of air travel if he can’t right the ship in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.
USC looked rather shaky in their 31-23 victory to open the season against Fresno State, and lost starting quarterback J.T. Daniels for the season in the process. But in Week 2 it looked like the Trojans had figured things out, as Kedon Slovis took over at quarterback and promptly put up one of the most efficient performances by a true freshman in his first start in NCAA history.
Slovis put up solid numbers against BYU in defeat, as he threw for 281 yards and two touchdowns on 24-of-34 passing. But the defeat was also predicated in large part on three Slovis interceptions, as the youngster tried to do too much for the Trojans and pressed his luck. That included a game-ending interception in overtime, as Slovis saw his pass tipped up for Dayan Ghanwoloku to snag at the final gun.
Not all of this misfortune falls directly on the coach’s shoulders. But when it comes to the waxing and waning fortunes of a college football team, the coach always draws a disproportionate amount of both the accolades and the blame.
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At this point, if Helton doesn’t feel quite the same heat that Kiffin suffered through in 2013, he at least must feel a little like Captain Hook. The clock is ticking ever louder on Helton’s tenure at Southern California, and the USC coach looks increasingly like a man living on borrowed time.