USC's Clay Helton: 'I needed to be truthful that I could do a better job'

Senior wide receiver Michael Pittman has been in the USC football program for all of Clay Helton's three full seasons as head coach.

Which is why he was as surprised as anyone this spring when he noticed -- and felt -- a decidedly different approach from Helton.

"Honestly, the first time I was kind of shocked because I remember I got into a little scuffle at practice and he really ripped me. And that was the first time he's really ripped me like that," Pittman said Wednesday at Pac-12 Media Day. "I didn't take it personal because I was wrong and that's something that I like deserved, but I was kind of, almost like proud of him. It sounds kind of funny to say, but I was like, 'Yeah! OK!' It was really good to see."

Helton has openly acknowledged that in addition to needing to make changes throughout his program -- which athletic director Lynn Swann bluntly and publicly stated after that 5-7 finish last fall -- the embattled coach also had to start with himself.

He had to acknowledge that the head coach sets the tone for the program, and the notes the Trojans were hitting last season were way out of key.

So Helton was louder this spring, barking at scholarship players and walk-ons alike to do up-downs when they committed penalties. He stepped back from his involvement in the offense, deferring to new coordinator Graham Harrell so he could focus on what he likes to call "the discipline of the game" -- curbing the penalty woes and general sloppiness that plagued USC last fall.

They are surface changes until proven otherwise, but it was where Helton believed he had to start if he was going to reclaim a grip on his USC tenure.

"I do believe you get what you coach and you get what you emphasize, and you know, it was something that needed to be addressed and I needed to be truthful that I could do a better job as the head coach of making sure that's my discipline of the game," he said Wednesday. "... My passion as you saw in spring as well as it will be in fall is I don't ever want to look up and lose how we lost the last four games. I don't want to ever feel that way again in my life."

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But until USC delivers on Saturdays (or Fridays, when needed), the Trojans are still the team that blew a 14-point second-half lead at home to Cal, that let a rebuilding UCLA team rush for 313 yards and outscore them 13-0 in the fourth quarter the following week, that then allowed 24 straight points to Notre Dame to squander an early 10-0 lead in the finale. Until further notice, they are still the program coming off that 5-7 finish and a chaotic offseason, and Helton is still the coach perceived to be on one of the hottest seats in college football.

All that said, there is a palpably different vibe entering fall camp, for reasons both intangible and tangible.

If USC is to return to form, to find stability in line with its proud standards, that will hinge largely on three pronounced changes since the Trojans found every which way to come apart down the stretch last season.

One is the addition of Harrell and whether he is able to back up the post-spring hype and elevate an offense loaded with 5-star and 4-star playmakers. Another change that's inspired a lot of confidence has been the addition of new strength and conditioning coach Aaron Ausmus, with players issuing a seemingly unanimous refrain about the heightened commitment in the weight room and overall accountability he's ushered in.

Those are factors even a tepid optimist can get put some belief behind.

"I'd say that both of them have pretty much changed this team and changed our culture, and both of them do it in different ways," Pittman said.

Of course, though, the third tenet to any potential turnaround -- which will require a little more proof -- is Helton and his own transformation.

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Helton politely bristled at the final question lobbed his way during his 30-minute Pac-12 Media Day press conference. It was about the common criticism that his teams didn't practice with enough physicality or intensity in the past.

"Well, I thought the 15 practices we had in the spring, if everybody was out there, we went to the letter of the law as far as full-pad practices, as far as tackle practices, and we'll do the same in training camp," Helton said. "If you ask our players, I think they'll tell you it was a very physical practice. It's been an extremely tough offseason, and it'll be a very physical training camp. We will go to the letter of the law."

USC's spring practices indeed had an objectively different energy level than where the Trojans left off last fall.

Again, the last five months in general have seemed to have a different feel for the program. That's sort of a nebulous observation, sure, but the same could be said of the very real malaise that seemed to set in late last fall. It couldn't be quantified, but it was felt.

The change, meanwhile, is noticed in the tempo of those spring sessions, the way the players are raving this summer about Ausmus, and the continued honest accounting of what went so wrong last season.

"Double-A has really changed the way that we look at strength training. He's taken me places that I never thought I could go," Pittman said. "Some of those workouts, I never thought in 10,000 years I'd be able to do. That's what coaches do is they take you places that you can't take yourself, and I feel that's what he's doing with me and with our whole team. … I feel like that's going to help us finish games like how we came out hot in the first half and then we kind of fell off the second half. I feel like he is conditioning us for more than just weight training."

The predominant buzz word around the program has been accountability. A couple players described recently how the team was divided up into four competitive squads for the summer program, with each accountable to the rest of their group.

Missing a workout affects not only the individual but that entire unit. Ditto for missing class or anything else perceived as a lapse in discipline. Ausmus has been the most influential in reinforcing that directive since spring practice, because he's the coach around the players the most in the offseason/summer, but Pittman made clear it's a collective accountability nowadays.

"[Harrell], he's a really good disciplinarian coach. I think somebody missed class and we went out there and ran like six full gassers and we're doing 25 up-downs between each gasser. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. Everybody had to do it. Everybody," Pittman continued. "I do not miss class because of that. If anybody misses class, they better watch out because we're coming for them."

Helton deserves credit here too. He made the decision to hire Ausmus -- a decision some critics were quick to decry as a hire of convenience, considering Ausmus hadn't worked for a college program since being previously let go from USC following the coaching change in 2013.

Helton emphasized Wednesday that he knew what he was getting with Ausmus, who has also stated that the head coach made it clear to him at that time that those directives of accountability and discipline had to be paramount in the Trojans' offseason efforts.

"It was important for our football team to understand how we got beat, especially down the stretch in those last four [losses] by seven points or less in each one of those games. It was nothing that an opponent did. We beat ourselves," Helton said. "You know, when you turn the ball over two times in the red zone [vs.] Cal and two times in the red zone [vs.] Notre Dame, you have critical penalties down the stretch, you don't acquire turnovers. We did some things with lack of fundamentals that make you just an average football team rather than what you can become. ...

"I'm going to focus on what wins football games, and I'm going to have a passion towards that. I'm going to make sure our players feel that because when they feel it, they know there's a sense of urgency, an importance, and it's demanded of them. So, yes, the heat got turned up a little bit in the spring, and I felt it was nice."

Speaking on the Trojan Talk podcast back in May, Pittman expounded on the "more rough" version of Helton the Trojans have seen this spring.

But how much can one coach and one team really change in a matter of months?

While Helton has no shortage of vocal critics coming off USC's first losing season since 2000, Pittman is one of his most vocal supporters and doesn't believe his coach is evaluated in proper perspective.

"I feel like they don't look at what he did collectively, as a whole, when we're talking Pac-12 championship, Rose Bowl and then we have like one bad year. It happens," he said.

A reporter responded with a pointed follow-up question -- "Why?"

"See, now that's a hard thing to [pinpoint]," Pittman said. "I would have to say that we were just young. We were young on offense and we didn't capitalize on some of the stuff that the defense kind of handed us and we kind of put them in bad spots some times. …

"I think it's like the conflict theory. You have to go through something to come out on that other side. And I feel like we're coming out on that other side."

Whether the Trojans are truly coming out the other side will hinge on whether Helton has truly identified the why and effectively addressed it.

That's the unknown variable. An easy case can be made as to why Harrell and his new simplistic, uptempo offensive approach should be able to get more out of the impressive collection of talent on that side of the ball. Players can talk specifically about the changes they've undergone physically this offseason and make clear it's been a different, more grueling strength training regimen than in the recent past.

But a louder Helton and a more energetic vibe at practice aside, there's nothing definitive to explain why the underlying factors that helped undermine last season might be different in 2019. Or whether emphasizing the "discipline of the game" will indeed prove to be a cure-all for those ills.

Then-senior captain Cam Smith laid out some of those factors after the final loss to Notre Dame, noting how he felt it was hard to reach some of the players on the team and how there were times he questioned the collective competitiveness, buy-in and focus.

Redshirt senior defensive end Christian Rector offered some further sentiments Wednesday.

"I just think we let too much stuff slide. As leaders from the top down, we just let too much stuff slide, we got comfortable, we thought wins would get handed to us, we thought we'd just come in and get wins because we're 'SC and that's what we do. No, it's the Pac-12 and that's something that we realized," he said.

So, what then has changed from his vantage point?

"I'd say the sense of urgency is different to get things done," Rector said. "… I think once we do get to the season, the voices and the chatter will kind of change and the buzz will pick up again. But right now if you have to talk about us it's what happened last season."

Helton had plenty of those same conversations with his players about what went wrong in his end-of-season exit interviews, soliciting honest feedback and constructive criticism, he said.

While his detractors seem as dug-in as ever and unwilling to give any benefit of the doubt regarding the changes within the program -- which include five new assistant coaches and other staff shuffling -- it should at least be noted that Helton has been anything but stubborn this offseason while acknowledging those changes were needed. Even if not the ultimate change for which many fans clamored.

"We had hard conversations. That was part of the process. You always do exit interviews with your seniors and being able to garner information, and you know, it's not always [positive] information, but it's the information that's needed for you to improve," Helton said. "Again, you can either do one of two things. You can either pretend like everything is great and put your head in the sand, or you can try to become the best team in the country and be willing to make the changes that are needed and don't have feelings. ...

"I just want our team to be the most successful it can be. Whether it's me improving in some areas, whether it's our team improving in some areas, not only do I listen, but the things that I know will help us, I'll institute. And that's what I've done in this offseason."

As for that ongoing backlash from fans and other critics, he gets it, he says. And if it fazes him, he doesn't show it.

"I've never felt ill will for a bad article. I've never felt ill will for a fan being displeased. It's part of the game," Helton said. "And when you do your job and you win ballgames, usually you get good articles and you get some cheers. I look forward to getting that back and I look forward to getting this season started."

Because there's nothing he can do to change the majority of public opinion until change is reflected first on the field in the fall.

The Trojans do seem to have some fresh momentum after that dismal 2018 and turbulent start to the offseason, and there is a viable roadmap to a strong reclamation season. Enough to engender some real optimism entering fall camp, for those who are so inclined.

But, yes, also much still to prove.