USC fans probably didn't expect former coach Clay Helton to land a new job before the Trojans landed a new head coach, but that became reality Tuesday as Helton was officially announced as Georgia Southern’s head coach.
Helton, who was let go at USC on Sept. 13, two days after a Week 2 loss to Stanford, remained unemployed for less than two months.
Georgia Southern, which competes in the Sun Belt Conference, had fired head coach Chad Lunsford back in September after a 1-3 start to this season. The school officially announced Helton's hiring as head coach just hours after reports started to come out Tuesday morning.
Helton went 46-24 as USC's head coach, including two stints as interim head coach. He took over the team five games into the 2015 season when USC parted ways with Steve Sarkisian and had the interim title removed after that campaign, beginning a rollercoaster tenure.
After going 10-3 with a Rose Bowl victory in his first full season and 11-3 with a Pac-12 championship the next year, the trajectory of the program changed sharply when USC went 5-7 in 2018 -- the program's worst record since 2000.
Helton never recovered from that within the fan base, although a contract extension he had signed prior to that season -- which ran through the 2023 season -- gave him more time to try to turn things around.
The Trojans improved to a middling 8-5 the next year but got beat handily in the Holiday Bowl to Iowa, 49-24, and finished tied for 71st in the Rivals recruiting rankings -- last in the Pac-12 and the program's worst-ever finish. USC went 5-1 during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but that included three wild comeback wins and a deflating loss to Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game.
Helton's leash had shortened significantly, and after a 42-28 loss to Stanford in the Coliseum early this season, with fans booing the coach and team, the end had come.
According to a federal tax return filed by the university and obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Helton earned more than $4.5 million from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019. With two more seasons left on his contract and owed to him, he could have enjoyed well-compensated time off with his USC buyout, but instead he jumps right back in with this new job.
Georgia Southern was once one of the top football programs at the FCS level, winning six national championships between 1985-2000. The Eagles joined the Sun Belt Conference in 2014 while transitioning to the FBS level and won the conference in their first full year as a member.
After back-to-back 9-win seasons to start its FBS run, Georgia Southern lost head coach Willie Fritz to Tulane and has been on its own rollercoaster ever since.
Tyson Summers lasted just one and a half seasons as Eagles head coach, going 5-13 before being replaced by Lunsford, who went 28-21. His best season was a 10-3 finish in 2018, but the program hasn't won a conference title since its 2014 Sun Belt debut.
Georgia Southern is 2-6 overall this season, including four games with interim head coach Kevin Whitley.
The program has traditionally run a triple-option offense, so it will be interesting to see how it transitions under Helton.
The Sun Belt is a competitive conference that currently has two nationally ranked teams in No. 21 Coastal Carolina and No. 24 Louisiana.
Helton was briefly in the Sun Belt more than a decade ago when he spent less than two months as offensive coordinator at Arkansas State before resigning to take the QB coach job at USC, beginning his climb up the ladder in Los Angeles, with promotions to offensive coordinator in 2013 and head coach in 2015.
Now he comes full circle a bit in looking for a fresh start back in the Sun Belt.
There was mitigation language in Helton's contract -- the exact terms are unknown -- that means USC will have some or all of Helton's Georgia Southern contract (announced at an average of $800,000 annually) reduced from what it owes him the next two years, per a source familiar with the details.
