Sports digest: USC will keep Helton as head coach

Only three more can get to six wins.

How’s that for stepping out of your orator comfort zone?

Good for the Trojans.

-Mark Richt plans to take the next couple of weeks to decide what he wants to do in the future after his dismissal Sunday as the head football coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. Pete Carroll was a mere two wins over.

So much for the burning need to hire a marquee name. It’s safe to say, though, that no matter what, expectations for how things will fare next season will be through the roof.

“Clay was not hired because his team defeated UCLA”, Haden said. Perhaps. In this case it made sense, just as continuity makes sense.

The question was not complicated.

Helton also served as the Trojans’ head coach for one game in 2013 after the departures of Kiffin and Ed Orgeron.

He is fourth Trojan in past five years so honored.

The players see Helton as genuine.

He enters the Saturday’s game on a different astral plane. This is pure posturing.

“Oh yeah, no doubt”, Richt said when asked if he would coach again.

“Sometimes the right choice is not always the easy choice”, he said.

Afterward, Helton tugged his trademark cap even lower and ducked his head in embarrassment when I told him I was going to basically write the same column again, only stronger.

“He appreciates everything we do”, Nwosu continued. That’s why we love him.

This attitude among the players had to resonate with the brass from Haden on up.

Caroline Deisley is SI’s campus correspondent for USC. How about that as a hint of what was to come? JuJu Smith-Schuster is the leading receiver for USC with 1302 yards and 10 touchdowns.

“There is no doubt in my mind”, he said. He pointed out having six-year relationships with the program’s redshirt seniors, like Kessler, who played their last games at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum this past month. At least from an outside perspective, it really looks like USC’s players have their swagger and their identity back – I hate to deal with intangibles like that, but they absolutely seem to have an added bounce in their step. “They said, ‘You guys will regret it if you let this one slip away.’ So I’m down for Coach Helton”.

Helton has been an assistant at USC since 2010.

Largely thanks to McCaffrey, solid play from Kevin Hogan – an All-Conference selection – at quarterback and the typically impressive defense, Stanford is 8-1 in its last nine games with an outside shot, still, at the College Football Playoff.

From the history to the matchup, Paolo Uggetti joins Connor McGlynn to talk about some of the keys to this championship matchup and what USC needs to do to win.

“People outside (USC), they might not know about him”, Davis said. “We can just focus on Stanford”.

There was no doubt in Rogers’ mind who should be hired.

The USC Trojans have announced that interim head coach Clay Helton has signed a multi-year contract as the new permanent head coach.

The Trojans, however, might have gotten a little extra motivation to win Saturday’s game with Helton in the position to notch his first win as the official leader of the program. No other school had more than five players. We’re playing a similar style, physical with some play-action passes.

Scouting report – The only chance UCLA has against Kentucky on Thursday at Pauley Pavilion is to pound the ball in to big men Tony Parker and Thomas Welsh. Beating a team twice in one season is very tough to do, so I am taking USC and the points in this one.