History will remember Clay Helton as USC’s accidental head coach. He served twice as the interim before being hired full time. He was the coach who kept sticking around, as the confluence of winning just enough and getting a preposterous contract by an incompetent athletic director enabled him to be the coaching version of a sitcom neighbor who kept hanging around.
Even from the beginning of Helton’s tenure at USC, the end was always in sight. Even after winning the Rose Bowl during the 2016 season and the Pac-12 the next year, there was more focus on the limitations than the potential.