USC Is Keeping Clay Helton As Head Coach After A Meeting With Chip Kelly Reportedly Went South

USC played like a team actually capable of doing some damage against UCLA, winning for the first time against them in four years by a solid 40-21 margin that wasn’t even as close in the second half as that score looks. And Clay Helton has done a great job keeping things stable after our coach legitimately drank himself out of a job. But how much of this is set on by panic because possible candidates Justin Fuente is going to Virginia Tech and Tom Herman will have his pick of top SEC jobs if he so chooses? Helton has done a tremendous job of getting players and the school to trust him — and harp on and on about how they want to win for him — but if those good vibes weren’t enough to hire Ed Orgeron a few years ago, why are they enough now?

Pair the reports together and you get this: Chip Kelly bombed a probable covert meeting this weekend (either because he’s still not been even remotely humbled by the dumpster fire in Philly or because he knows Tennessee and Marcus Mariota will be there for him at the end of it all), USC was worried about missing out on other hot coaching names and decided to pull the trigger on Clay Helton now rather than risk losing him or, worse, ending up with him at the end of it all after publicly whiffing on a bunch of names. This at least makes it seem entirely like it was USC’s choice and now if Helton has what it takes to be a program-defining coach, he has the best possible shot at it. And worse case scenario for the school, Clay Helton “can’t get them over the hump” but at least he isn’t a public embarrassment like Sark or Kiffin were and they can retool for their next big hire under a new AD. It’s pretty much a win-win for USC’s administration when you think about it.

The good news for us fans and alums is that if USC was even rumored to be sniffing around other candidates this week, they’d definitely blow the Pac 12 title game or the potential ensuing Rose Bowl amidst all the chaos. The hope now is they can keep rallying behind Helton, beat Stanford, win the only bowl that matters to USC boosters, and maybe be back in the mix for a College Football Playoff spot next year. It’s a smart play if not the most exciting one. But either way one thing is for sure: Fuck Chip Kelly in his fat dumb face and if he goes to another college team I hope it burns.