Actually, no Sunday Night With Clay Helton because he did not speak to the media tonight. The Pac-12 championship game on Friday somehow means he can’t speak for 15 minutes on Zoom.
Last year, Helton gave game footballs to USC president Carol Folt and athletic director Mike Bohn after the UCLA. I have not heard of any dramatic gestures last night in the locker room but Helton wasn’t fighting to save his job.
I did hear from a player that Helton told the team after the game the most important things in his life were Jesus, his wife and the Victory Bell.
How many believed that?
When USC beats Notre Dame, does the shillelagh move to No. 3?
- USC did not want to show UCLA outgained the Trojans in this graphic it sent out last night:
- USC postponed its basketball game with Stanford tonight because of a positive coronavirus test.
InsideUSC with Scott Wolf 
is he interviewing at auburn, we have a “great” 5-0 coach and will help with your coach’s buyout.
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A coach who talks like that shoudn’t be the head coach at USC.
His religious beliefs shouldn’t factor in at all whether he is retained as USC head football coach.
#LookingForACoachWithCoachingBonaFides,NotWhetherJesusIsPartOfHisLife
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In “The Right Stuff” Tom Wolfe said ‘the highest expression of humanity is to have the moxie, the reflexes, the coolness and the experience to do something in a cause that matters to thousands of people and to God.’ Those in sports understand what this means better than many. I don’t fault fault them. I admire them. My problem with Helton is I sense he says what he says for reasons other than deep commitment to higher principles…..
#”CoachFolt”??!
#wtf?!
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Clay has been pretending for so long that he no longer knows when he is being dishonest with himself.
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I don’t think Clay started off pretending. When he took over for Coach Orgeron he was known as an utterly sincere coach, beloved by his troops. But Clay has begun using that image —it’s become a survival technique. Now, when he pulls out his miniature bible and reads a passage, he kinda reminds me of Sinclair Lewis’ “Bongo The Circus Bear”, performing for his handlers.
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Dabo Swinny, Tony Dungy, Mike Tomlin, Bill McCarthy, Joe Gibbs and many others. Jesus should always be first to Christians, it certainly doesn’t disqualify anyone from coaching or winning championships.
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It’s not about disqualifying anyone because of his beliefs.
It’s about whether those religious beliefs are being used as a factor to keep him. That is what is inappropriate.
#Helton’sQualificationsShouldBeBasedOnHisCoachingSkill,WhichAreMediocreAtBest
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I certainly admire his belief in Christ. It should be the first priority in your life. However, Clay is a lousy coach and that is what drives me up a wall. He has to work as hard at his vocation as his love for God.
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So you think that Clay’s religious beliefs are what is keeping him at an ultra liberal school? Please explain.
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I understand where you are coming from Mrs. Helton. “If you disown me in front of man, I will disown you in front of my father. However this leaves two other qualifiers, ironically one of which is you. SO which is the disqualifier you or the victory bell?
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That’s funny Rialto. I guess I am the odd man, er. woman out.
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Helton’s “holier – than – attitude” is being leveraged as a way to offset USC’s multiple scandals by higher ups.
USC’s reputation is being tarnished because of admissions scandals, medical school misbehavior by deans and Title IX investigation non-sense. By deciding to keep a mediocre coach, USC can point to Helton’s “saintly” behavior as a positive for the school.
But you can’t keep on relying on nice guy behavior nor use it as a justification if elements of the program – recruiting, bad coaching, getting consistently dominated by bigger stronger teams – are terrible.
Saying I believe in Jesus doesn’t change the fact Helton is a terrible head coach and a bad choice to lead this program.
#HeltonIsNotAGoodHeadCoachAndHisReligiousBeliefsDon’tChangeThatOrTheDamageHe’sDoneToTheProgram
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@marv- gotcha. Yes, he doesn’t stir the pot and we have too much of that as a university. I understand what you are getting at now. I don’t think it has to do with his faith as much as he is safe. He’s not going to say I’d do anything to further embarrass the school, other than coaching results. I guess it’s Two sides of same coin. But one thing we do agree about is he is no Dabo, Dungy, Gibbs, etc. and never will be.
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The vic bell is ahead of his kids?
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Good point, 67. I mean, where does that come from?!
#HeDemeans”Faith,Family&Football”WithThatBabble
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Say what you want but that was a really big win for them regardless of who outgained who. That was not a poor team that they beat. UCLA is a really good team. I’ve watched them all year long. I didn’t think SC would beat them. It was a big win. Hopefully, it will help on recruiting because they will lose a lot of players off of this team after this year.
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DTR had a career best. Watching him yesterday, I can see why he was the second ranked dual threat QB when he came out of high school. He was so much better than last year. But they still couldn’t beat USC. I really would like to see how USC would play against an opponent as good or better than USC’s personnel. There aren’t too many teams like that, at least right now.
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No doubt the last two victories before large television audiences will reap a great class of recruits —– and winning this Friday’s well publicized contest would be the icing on the cake.
And, yes, that was a Big Victory. There aren’t a lot of teams that could have beat the UCLA team that played us yesterday. Not only were they motivated, they have mostly top 50 high school players as starters and they are well coached.
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“after the UCLA”
Are they trying to be like The Ohio State now?
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Maybe in soccer, gymnastics, and water polo.
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Ucla bettered us in all team stats but fortunately for us that included turn overs and poor coaching decisions at critical times like going for it on 4th and short running a true freshman who didn’t make the first down leading to the loss. Ucla at best is an average team. If we were a well coached team we would have crushed them but as usual it takes almost miracles for USC to pull out another win. I understand that anytime we best UCLA it’s a good day but we again didn’t play well for the whole 60 minutes.
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I guess Claydo’s children did not make the top 3. He is such a politician and if my dad did not include me either in spot 2 or 3 behind my mother I would be pissed. Claydo is a fraud
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His kids were 4th — close runner up to the victory bell.
#ClayHelton:”UnfortunatelyMyListOnlyGoesUpThe#3″
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*
“Up To The Number 3”
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Actually Toa the love of his life was number 4. His kids are further down the list. Fight On!
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Great platitude from the king of platitudes. He doesn’t explain all of the horrible (un-USC-like) miscues. They were a necessary character building exercise.
Mr. Helton as far as coaches go, you are a solid #2 (and it stinks)
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Helton needs to be replaced. I don’t care what are his top 30 goals in life. He does a bad job as HC. Changing his assistants was good. Changing the HC is better. If they go to a bowl, prepare for another Iowa shellacking
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