Two days after being told that head coach Clay Helton had been fired, several of USC’s assistant coaches reflected on the unexpected start to the week and how the program has moved forward since the coaching transition.
Those reactions Wednesday ranged from heartfelt appreciation for Helton to matter-of-fact back-to-business vibes.
“Heartbroken,” defensive line coach Vic So’oto said. “That guy’s probably the best dude I ever met in this business as a person and the environment he created for an assistant coach was awesome. So I’m definitely sad.”
Said defensive coordinator Todd Orlando: “Oh, it was tough. You get in those situations and Coach Helton knows this, when you care and love somebody like that it’s emotional. The first thing in my opinion, you go back to the kids and you go back to USC and the pridefulness of your work.
“But it’s tough. When you’re in the building, professional, 1-0, work the moment. When you’re outside of it, it’ll mess with you for a little bit. But Washington State’s not going to care about that. We’ve got to move forward and continue to get better at the things that we weren’t.”
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Donte Williams, who had served as USC’s associate head coach/cornerbacks coach, was elevated to interim head coach after Helton was fired, less than two days after the Trojans’ ugly 42-28 loss to Stanford at home.
Athletic director Mike Bohn has reiterated several times that part of the logic in making the move now is that the Trojans still have plenty of potential this season and making a quick change gave them the best chance to maximize it.
To that end, offensive coordinator Graham Harrell seemed less interested in looking backward at this point.
“Besides Monday, I mean it’s just a week. We’ve been practicing and I think that the guys have done a heck of a job, we’re excited about the opportunity we have and try to score points like always,” he said.
Both Harrell and Orlando were asked how the change at the top affects the way they look at their own futures — as a new coach normally chooses to bring in new coordinators — and both downplayed that element of all this.
“I don’t, man. It’s just being a pro, that’s what’s it’s about and prioritizing. I don’t look at it from my standpoint, I really don’t. I just look at it from the kids’ standpoint,” Orlando said. “The times where you said, ‘Hey, listen, let’s battle adversity. Let’s be tough people. Let’s be tough-minded.’ From our standpoint, there’s our time to show our true character. I just worry about those guys. I worry about USC and what we represent. And then, just having pride.
“That’s the biggest thing from all of our standpoint. We can do the best work in the country, there’s no doubt about it. That motivates me every day. I don’t get out of routine just because things are messing — I’ve been raised to go through tough situations. You just press forward. As bad as you want as you want to mess with your head and there will be times where it is, you got to squash it. It’s over, you can’t get it back. Let’s deal in the moment. Let’s be 1-0 in the moment right now and just move forward.”
Harrell largely echoed those sentiments.
“It doesn’t change much. It changes because Coach Helton’s not in there every day, but as far as doing our job, as long as we’re here we gotta go do it, you know what I mean? And like I said, I think we have a good football and a lot of things ahead of us and a lot of things we can accomplish ahead of us,” he said. “So I think that our guys understand that, our players understand that, I think everyone in our offense understands that and that’s all we’re trying to do, like I said, win as many games as we can, score as many points as we can, get as many stops as we can, whatever the case may be, whatever side you’re on and accomplish a lot of great things.
“And like I said, we have great young men in there, a great staff but our players, we got a lot of good dudes in there and like I said, I think they’re a close team. I talk to our guys all the time, we talk about culture. You don’t need culture when things are good, you need it when a little adversity strikes. So I think the guys, besides the initial shock, I think they’ve handled it as well as you can possibly handle it and shown up to play, shown up to get better and improve and practice every day and that’s all you can ask for.”
In Harrell’s case, he was also asked what his reaction was to not being selected as the interim head coach.
Bohn had noted that he wanted the coordinators to be able to focus on their jobs the rest of the way while Williams took on the added responsibilities that come with being the head coach.
Harrell seemed to understand that and noted that the team had a plan even going back to last year, if Helton had to miss a game due to COVID, that running backs coach Mike Jinks would have taken over as head coach for that game for the same reason.
“I think that, you know, the administration did what they had to do, what they thought was best, and Coach Helton even used to talk about this, even before when he was here about if something were to happen to him last year during COVID, we had this conversation I think Jinks probably would’ve taken over for that role just because he wanted the coordinators to focus on their jobs and continue to try to put together gameplans and execute their sides of the ball. That’s what we’re trying to do. That’s TO’s goal. That’s our goal on offense. Keep executing, keep doing our job, keep trying to win football games.
“Obviously in a situation like this, there’s a lot of stuff that’s not even on the field that any interim is going to have to deal with, that Donte is going to have to take care of, and the thought is that’s going to be very time consuming for anyone that has to do it, so let the coordinators try to continue to do their jobs on that side of the ball and let Donte try to navigate probably a lot of headaches right now. Hopefully as the season goes on, we kind of get into a rhythm and he kind of get established what he needs to get established. I’m sure he’s getting pulled in every direction, so there’s a lot on his plate, and we have to focus on doing our jobs on each side of the ball.”
As for any noticeable changes at practice, the big one was that the team was in full pads for a second straight day, which had not been the routine on Wednesdays under Helton.
So’oto was asked what has felt different to him in any way, and he too said he liked the way the players have responded to reacted to this unexpected change.
“It just feels more upbeat. I don’t know if it’s because of the news and everybody getting tighter, but we’ve been running around, having fun, we’ve been in full pads two days in a row so that’s been different,” he said. “But besides that it’s trying to get everybody better. It’s business as usual.”