As a late Saturday afternoon chill descended upon his latest nightmare, Clay Helton disappeared into a Rose Bowl tunnel underneath USC fans wildly flapping their hands.
If Saturday in Pasadena wasn’t the precise end of Clay Helton’s career as USC coach, you could certainly see it from here.
In the wake of the season’s most embarrassing loss in its biggest game, a 34-27 defeat to UCLA, it seems impossible that Helton will keep his job beyond next week’s season finale against Notre Dame.
With all due respect to the three-win Bruins, this wasn’t so much a football game as a portrait of a talented Trojans team in chaos.