I’ve reached out to some players and asked what they wanted to do regarding a bowl game?
So far, none has said they wanted to skip a bowl game. They also said none of the teammates they spoke to wanted to skip a bowl game.
USC has said it was near the minimum number of players available to play a game. How can that be disproved?
All I know is the players I’ve heard from wanted to play.
The Players never quit on Helton all year. He obviously is quitting on them to protect his own backside and his stellar One Loss Season.
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I have to agree Lyle.
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Lyle,
My question is, did Bohn decide before the oregon game that if SC wins, they go play in a bowl game. If SC loses, then Helton will announce that there will be no bowl game. The reason behind this is that SC will go to a lower bowl game and the revenue will not pay for the expeneses for SC and that another loss like Iowa St., Ohio St, Wisconsin, and other bowl losses would force Bohn to fire Helton. Bohn doesn’t want to pay out Helton and have to hire another coach. There was no concern for the kids, just a concern to protect Helton and SC from embarrassement and having to fire Helton.
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Helton has no back-up QB — the moment Slovis got hurt [whether it was Game 1 or Game 6] the rest of the season was going to be cancelled…..
With our o-line I’m surprised we got as far as we did.
#OnlyTop25TeamWithoutServiceableBackUpQ.B……
#[GoToAnyBowlW/FinkAtQ.B.&USCGoesScoreless]….
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Helton and Harrell two supposed QB coaches and neither one could figure out they should have a few back-up QB’s on the roster and ready to step in.
Nope, they’re both clueless idiots.
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“Bible thumping bullshitter.
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He is a snake oil salesman! But everyone figured out his crap long ago, except maybe the higher ups. Which I find hard to believe they don’t as well! So everyone is now saying they will fire him after next year. Any good executive would have fired him long ago! Not keep avoiding the inevitable! Cut your losses and do it now! Why put us through another painful underachieving season! You know it will only get worse next year with a much improved San Jose State, BYU, and ND as non conference opponents. I wouldn’t doubt we lose all three! Fire Helton please! We are so close to a championship! BS!
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Practically, I see some advantages and disadvantages THIS YEAR.
Advantages of a Bowl Game:
1. More game time reps–esp for the younger players.
Nevertheless, with this shambolic season for all Pac12 schools, I don’t think a bowl game will add useful reps toward a successful 2021.
2. Money. Can’t argue this one.
3. Recruiting. Can’t argue this one.
4. Improving the players “draft stock.” I think the NFL combine and the individual workouts are more important to scouts than any bowl game performance.
Disadvantages
1. Injury, injury, injury
2. Recruiting–ie, if you’re blown out does a Feb LOI get flipped?
3. Why go to San Antonio to play in a mostly empty stadium with none of the usual Bowl Game perks?
While the optics of skipping a second-tier Bowl Game are ugly and are not consistent with what we successful Trojans feel is our spirit of Fight On, I can see why the risk of injury and a blow out (Trojans played a 6 game season, Texas a full season) out-weighed any perceived advantage.
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I can see why too, Bourbon. Let’s take stock of what Helton has at his disposal without Slovis: Nothing. That was simple.
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Fire Helton get Myers bring back usc as the champion team it once was
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Falling attendance at the coliseum and how to pay for the renovation
should seal his fate. I am trying to persuade myself that next year will be his last.
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Let’s be honest —It’d be more fun if he doesn’t make it through next season…..
#AfterBeingFiredOnSidelinesDuringBYUGame…..
#….HeltonStrips&StreaksField…
#[Okay!LastPartIsAskingForBitTooMuchDebasement]….
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😂😂🤣
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If SC won their PAC12 championship game, would they have opted out of the bowl game?
This says a lot about the AD Bohn Head. He did not want to hear the constant complaining by alumni is likely. It affects donations.
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I feel sorry for the players because as a competitor this would not sit well with me if the game was taken away from me and my teammates not by Covid but my own coach. Helton didn’t think that his veterans like Connor Murphy, Liam Jimmons, Matt Fink and the rest might deserve at least the opportunity to play a 7th………….7th game of a short season at a bowl game. Tough pill to swallow.
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I feel sorry for the players, too, Sam. Very sorry. Not for missing a Bowl —but for all the face time they’ve had to spend with Helton for the last 3 years….
Without Kedon, Helton doesn’t have an effective passer for his ALL Air Raid/All the time offense (and Drevno is incapable of getting the o-line ready for a run oriented offense in 10 days). That means our players would wind up bearing the brunt of Helton’s incompetence in a game played outside our own weak
conference. I don’t want to see them fed to the wolves.
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I’m with you 100% Mike.
But for me if it means Helton one step closer to the curb if we look bad than I can take that on the chin for the better days that hopefully would follow.
Did you see Urban Meyer speaking about how he see’s the USC job?
URBAN MEYER-“USC is not a glamor job. it’s elite. USC is elite-elite In two days you could have the best football players on campus”
I hope that was a subtle & subliminal message to Folt and Bohn saying “I’m ready!”
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If only, Sam….
[I just can’t see women like Bohn or Folt wanting a man like Urban in the house]…
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Gomer Claus is a punk. I wonder if he truly believes that he deserves to be the coach at SC?
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Yes he does believe he should be USC HC. He takes daily medication that convinces himself of that. Prescription only. But it does adversely affect balance, as in when Helton fell down trying to herd London of the field at the end of the gutty game.
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I’m finding games are becoming more and more unwatchable. The air raid is such a pussy beta male offense.
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I never believed the medical excuse or that the players didn’t want to play… I believe that Helton was scared of being shown up, yet again, one more loss closer to termination. Helton’s only allies are Carol Dolt and the clueless national sports media, of course there are SC’s opponents which are pulling for another five years of failure.
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The humiliation and gradual destruction of SC football are being done by design.
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Just like a lot of other things in California, I’m afraid….
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“Football is inherently illiberal.”*
Gosh, Michael, I know it is inappropriate to quote oneself–as I have done above–in peer-reviewed academic literature, but Hell, I my Surgery Professors did it all the time.
With 10 or 11 liberal-led Universities in the Pac12, one can see why the athletic performance is declining at an astonishingly rapid rate. Sad for us old guys to watch. BYU and U Utah are neither liberal schools, and I’ve watched them progress from solid WAC schools athletically to the elite ranks of the West Coast (again, athletically).
No one gives a darn about Ivy League sports. Interestingly, in my lifetime I have enjoyed watching several of the California schools (UCLA, Stanford, UC San Diego, Cal) leapfrog several of the Ivy’s in the World’s ranking of Best Universities. The Economist provides my favorite (unbiased) ranking. Three of the schools above do not have the centuries of old money endowments of the Ivy’s, so how did the UC system leapfrog several of the Ivy Leaguers in the 1970’s/90’s?
Sadly, the present Pac12 leadership will take us to a “just below the Ivy’s”
status in academics and will take us to a D2 level athletically. We had a great run, tho. Watch out, Lehigh! Watch out, HolyCross! We’re gunnin’ for ya.
* Bourbon4me, insideUSC blog, 2020
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It sure seems that way, PJM
I would say it is more about ignorance. Why shoot yourself in the foot in that way? How are they to pay for all that remodel of the Coli without a strong football team? How can you recruit top tier athletes and all the publicity it brings by not having exposure on national TV? I could go on but I think you know what is going on here.
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T Hufunga just made All American for the 2020 football season in spite of Helton and Orlando. At least USC had 1 bright spot this year. Even though he couldn’t make tackle sometimes or he would of had 20 a game. Instead of his usual 15.
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I was mopping the floor after doing the dishes and it gave me time to think. This is how sad the PAC 12 has become: In a 7 game season 2 out twelve teams actually played 7 games. One was Oregon State at 2-5 and the other was a four letter acronym for U Clowns Lost Again. One would have to look back to the PAC 8 to see a shorter season. The whole season has been a duck and dodge ball game. I am convinced that Helton didn’t wan to play another game. The question is; is 5-2 a winning season? Wouldn’t 6 -2 look better?
But you are asking what if they lost the game? In the grand scheme of things that is always a possibility. USC manhandled Texas until Reggie made an illegal forward lateral. The refs got involved and even though they agree they blew it Texas still thinks they won the game. It happens. One thing we can count on with Helton he’s consistent; consistently bad.
Back to thinking.
Maybe a musical about Clay
The opening scene Clay is in the mountains twirling about and he sings, “The hills are alive, and they’re going to eat you.”
Segue to Mike Bohn’s Office where we hear (sung to the tunne of how do you solve a problem like Maria?)
How do you solve a problem like Helton?
How do you grab a quote and pin him down?
How do describe a coach like Helton?
A son of bitch, a platitude, A CLOWN
Many a thing you know you’d like to tell him
Many a thing you know he ought to hear
But how do you make him stay and explain the awful play?
How do you say the words we know he fears
Oh how do you solve a problem like Helton?
Just tell him he’s out next year
Oh sorry, floor’s dry gotta finish putting away the dishes. I’ll finish the musical right after the Bowl game???
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Thanks, Rialto. It was pretty easy to visualize Bohn, in Sister Superior’s uniform, belting out the “Helton Song” … little, baby tears streaming from both eyes….
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Nice!!
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I still say that it was the right decision. A lot of people came away thinking that this was a successful season. Had we gone to a bowl and played a good team and gotten blown out, then everyone would know the truth. It is sad that we had so much luck this year. The best thing for the program would have been to go 2-4. That would have put unbearable pressure for the administration and Clay Helton to get this program on the right track.
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Why is a company named STARLIGHT TRENDS for full figured ladies targeting me? FFS.
FU’s revenge?
#NO!!
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Sorry, Cal75. Did I do wrong?
#ThoughtYou’dGetAHolidayKickOuttaIt….
#[It’sHardPickingOutPresentsForFriends]
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Sorry, CalSeventyFive.
I get a running ad campaign of overly buxom women in my advert feed.
My wife thinks I am clicking on some bad sites…
(truth is, I’ve always preferred the female derriere)
Occasionally, the add for how to “fix crepey skin” shows up.
I never clicked on any such thing, though they know that
I suffer from it. Hmmm…
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Here is how the decision not to play was probably made. Harrell, told Helton no way we can win a bowl game without Slovis, and our best offensive lineman Tucker. Helton, said I agree, and I don’t want to risk our jobs with another loss especially to Texas, and we could get blown out. Bohn, came to Helton and said what do you think, and Helton said the players, and coaching staff all think we should not risk another game for the health and safety of our players. Do you think Carol Folt would let us opt out of a bowl game the kids should be with their families. Bonehead, said let me see if I can get Carol’s approval, and say the players want to opt out of the game so we don’t look so bad with our fans. Don’t worry Clay he said you will still have your job next year either way………..I got your back with the boosters, and fans. Therefore, the players were overuled because Helton wanted to duck another loss, and collect his paycheck another.
year.
How do you think Matt Fink , a fifth year senior feels who served this university well in a back up role. I believe he deserved the chance to prove what he could do in his final game with USC as a starter. I truely believe the majority of the players wanted to play in a bowl game. What is best for Helton, and Bonehead is not what the players wanted and deserved. Helton, claims his players are like his kids well it appears it’s all about hanging on to a job he never deserved in the first place. The Trojans players want to Fight On in 2020 Helton says why Fight On I get paid anyway if we don’t play. There is something really wrong at SC now, and it all starts with Helton, Bonehead, and Folt. Helton, and Bonehead should be selling used cars together they are two of a kind.
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We all forget that Matt lead a stirring victory over a ranked Utah team at the Coliseum in 2019. Pittman was very helpful that night, but still. You are so right that Matt should have had the chance one final time.
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