While most of the fan base and media (local and national) is presuming the end of the Clay Helton Era to be near at USC -- especially with the Trojans losing their grip on the Pac-12 South race last week in a deflating, lopsided loss to Oregon -- Helton himself does not sound at all like a man resigned to any fate.

He opened his postgame news conference Saturday after a tense 31-26 win at Arizona State with an overt homage to new USC athletic director Mike Bohn's emphatic use of "Fight on to victory" (rather than just the usual "Fight On" mantra).

And near the end of his media session, Helton advised anyone listening not to jump to conclusions about his team (while also maybe referring to himself as well).

"Our kids had said, 'Hey, we're bowl eligible,' but we have higher standards and we have more to play for. We have two games left. Next week could be win No. 7, the following week could be win No. 8, who knows if a Utah team slips up can you go get No. 9, can you go get No. 10 in a bowl game," Helton said. "We will keep on coming out and fighting each and every week until they tell us not to anymore. …

"The season's not over. There's a lot of it left. Some people want to write us off. Don't write us off quite yet -- this team's going to keep on winning ballgames and keep on fighting."

The Trojans did clinch bowl eligibility by improving to 6-4 overall and 5-2 in the Pac-12 with two regular-season games left at Cal and home vs. UCLA.

It's an interesting time for the Trojans with Bohn just taking over near the end of another football season that has mostly underwhelmed, but this USC team did at least come to play for its embattled coach while for now avoiding a repeat of its 2018 late-season collapse.

That said, the regular-season ceiling remains 8-4, and as Helton noted, it would take a Utah stumble to create an opening in the Pac-12 race. Helton wasn't asked about his future Saturday the way he was after that loss to Oregon -- one that involved a head-shaking 56-7 run by the Ducks -- but he did ask what lessons he hopes to impart to his players in these final weeks.

"This university has been great to me for 10 years, and the people have been great to me for 10 years, and these kids each one of them I've signed, so they'll get my absolute best effort as well as our staff," he said. "That's what servants and educators and coaches do if they do their job, and hopefully that rubs off on our kids and they learn some life lessons from it."

With that, here was the full postgame media session as well as breakout interviews with USC coaches and players:

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