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LOS ANGELES— It isn’t often that you hear a chorus of boos for the visiting team before an early season tune-up game against a program from the other side of the country. But USC’s matchup against Georgia Southern wasn’t your ordinary tune-up game.
The Georgia Southern Eagles are led by Clay Helton–the infamous former Trojans head coach who oversaw one of the darkest periods in the program's history.
After a 73-13 throttling of Missouri State, USC returned to the Coliseum for a second afternoon at home in sunny Southern California before Big Ten play begins next week. Former Trojan Deontay Burnett led the team out of the tunnel. He was a key member of the Trojans’ miraculous 2017 Rose Bowl win against Saquon Barkley and Penn State.
It was the last time the Trojans won a major bowl game, and afforded Helton a few more excruciating years as head coach at USC.
It feels like a lifetime ago now as Head Coach Lincoln Riley leads the program in his fourth year. Despite some disappointing moments in his tenure, Riley’s Trojans compete amidst a backdrop of a large, new football performance center coming soon, revitalized recruiting efforts (the Trojans currently have the number one ranked 2026 recruiting class ), and a smooth transition into Big Ten football.
Saturday was his first ever head coaching matchup against Helton, who spoke about his excitement to reporters on Tuesday. “One of the more special things for me is being able to bring our team out here,” Helton said. “This is the first time for our university ever to step foot in California and compete as a football team….I’ve got a couple guys that’ve never been on a plane before, let alone get to come out to California and be a part of this, and stay in [the] Dallas Cowboys training facility, and have a chance to walk into such a special place like the Coliseum and see that. I’m most excited for them to be honest with you, to have this experience, to have this college experience.
“Personally it’s going to be special for me,” he added. “There’s 12 years of relationships. I have so much gratitude for having been coaching for a decade-plus and the way the Trojan family was to me and my family and took care of us. [There are] obviously a lot of relationships when you’re at a place over a decade. People that I look forward to hugging their neck on Friday night and then you gotta wake up Saturday and you got to go play a game. This is special for my family. My son still lives in Southern California. My daughter is flying out from Washington D.C. to be a part of this. My [other] son who was in elementary school watching Matt Barkley, and Cody Kessler, and Sam Darnold and the boys… now he’s the backup quarterback here and he’s going to walk into the Coliseum wearing the blue and white as an Eagle, that makes me have goosebumps right now.”
Lincoln Riley said that he got a chance to get to know Clay Helton and his family at a charity golf tournament at Pebble Beach. “Phenomenal people, that uploads the reputation I’ve always heard about him.” Riley told reporters at practice Tuesday.
He echoed those sentiments after USC’s 59-20 victory Saturday night.
“I talked to him before the game. It’s great to see him. We’re having a really good conversation like we always do,” Riley told reporters postgame. “I have a ton of respect for him. I hope they win all the rest of their games. He and his family are great. He’s made some major contributions to this place, and as somebody that loves this place and is passionate about it, I just want him to know that he’s appreciated in our football program.”
Tight end Lake McRee, a freshman during Helton’s final year, called Helton a “great guy” after practice Tuesday and was excited to face him heading into the contest.
‘SC fans have been less than positive. But Helton was the lightning rod bearing the brunt of the systematic issues facing the university, and Lincoln Riley’s tenure has constituted the slow climb back to national relevancy.
Helton’s Eagles are a middle-of-the-road Sun Belt team. Despite a surprising upset of Nebraska in 2022, Georgia Southern floundered with back-to-back 6-7 seasons before improving to an 8-5 mark last year. With the loss at USC Saturday, Helton’s record at Georgia Southern is now 20-21…a resounding “meh”.
That’s how most USC fans felt about his time in Los Angeles.
However, Helton was just about the only consistent part of the program.
When future Pac-12 champion coach Chris Petersen mulled joining the Trojans in 2013, Athletic Director Pat Haden instead hired Steve Sarkisian. He clearly didn’t do enough due diligence, as Sarkisian suffered from alcoholism at the time, which was reportedly already known during his time as the head coach at Washington.
Two years after Sarkisian was fired, USC found itself at the center of the now-infamous college admissions scandal….and the George Tyndall sexual abuse scandal..and the “USC Medical School loss of accreditation” scandal….and the he “School of Social Work Federal Corruption” scandal.
Am I forgetting any?
Haden resigned in 2016 amidst controversy about the millions he and his family received from a charity. Former assistant AD Donna Heinel served six months in prison for the admissions scandal.
Haden’s replacement, NFL and USC legend Lynn Swann, retained Helton after a 5-7 2018 season–its worst season in nearly two decades.
Swann resigned in 2019–replaced by Mike Bohn, who hired Riley to replace Helton in 2021.
Mike Bohn himself resigned in 2023, after which the L.A. Times reported he was sued for allegedly harassing a female employee.
The fact of the matter is, the University of Southern California had multiple once-in-a-generation billion dollar scandals hit the school not soon after Sam Darnold won the Rose Bowl. Winning football games? Not exactly the school’s top priority at the time.
Clay Helton’s coaching tree leaves much to be desired: Tee Martin? Graham Harrell? Clancy Pendergast? His recruiting for the Trojans led to some of the worst-ranked classes they’ve ever had.
So, was Clay Helton a football coach worthy of a blue blood program? No. Was he a good overall recruiter? Absolutely not.
But was he a scandal-free, generally amicable guy? Yes. And that was enough in the midst of a school in turmoil.
Helton’s record his first three years in Troy was 26-10, better than Riley’s 26-14 record. He was the first USC head coach to have 10-win seasons in each of his first two full seasons, and he had more wins (21) in his first two full seasons than any USC coach.
But Southern California has had a revolving door of administrators, arrests, lawsuits, and whatever else since 2018. Helton kept the ship from completely sinking.
USC got the dominant win on Saturday. Helton got the boos. But his presence in the Coliseum, at least subconsciously, is more reminiscent of a very difficult era, rather than that of a former ball coach.
As the Trojans head into Big Ten conference play next week, Riley has a chance to cement that former era as nothing more than a bad memory.