Posted on October 30, 2020
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Clay Helton is in hot water.
I know, I know, I’m supposed to start this column off with a hot take.
But seriously. Clay Helton—specifically, Clay Helton’s job—is in hot water.
It’s not because the Trojans are going to go 4-3 (or 5-2, for that matter) and completely embarrass themselves this season. It’s not because the guys that he brought in—Todd Orlando, Craig Naivar, others—aren’t going to make any significant improvements to the product on the field.
In fact, it’s not anything on the field that I think has Helton’s status hanging in the balance.
Before I spoil the answer that I already spoiled in the headline, let’s back up and examine how we got here. Helton’s job, and sometimes his head, have been called for by Trojan fans for around 13.7 billion years now. After a disastrous 5-7 season and a subpar 8-4 one, there’s been some basis for the call—the job one, I mean. Not the head one.
That’s bad.
Each of the last couple years, USC fans thought it was finally the year—the year that Helton is finally relieved and the light finally shines down from the heavens unto the earth. But each year, it wasn’t.
And it always came back to the same thing. Helton might not be the best football coach in the world. He might not always call the right plays, he might not always have the right game plans, he certainly hasn’t always won the most games.
But the players like him.
Helton isn’t going to go all Nick Saban on his players in the locker room at halftime of a blowout loss. He’s not going to rip into his players to the media at post-loss press conferences or even say the way they played was unacceptable.
Helton is a nice guy. He’s not soft, he’s just a nice guy. Players like that. Simple.
But the Munir McClain situation may be threatening that dynamic, and the only reason Helton still has his job (we’ll ignore the elephant in the room that is his buyout, estimated in the $20 million range) might be dissipating.
For anyone who isn’t totally in tune with the situation, here’s the synopsis: Munir McClain, a sophomore receiver at USC, applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits over the summer, when income on his sneaker reselling business stalled because of the pandemic.
McClain was suspended in mid-September. What law he broke remains a mystery. USC players will soon be questioned on what they know about McClain and “an apparent plan at USC that sparked an ethics complaint alleging that students were approached to fraudulently file for EDD benefits,” per the Los Angeles Times.
McClain, joined by eight other players including his brother, Abdul-Malik, called for his reinstatement to the team in a press conference Sunday outside Galen Center “in defiance of USC Coach Clay Helton.”
Others who didn’t attend the conference posted about it on social media, retweeting a statement that referenced the aforementioned defiance.
—Pause—
This feels like an opportune time for a disclaimer: I, Nathan Ackerman, am not a USC football player. The following is not based on testimony, it is not based on personal experience. It’s based on the fact that when a player calls a press conference “in defiance of” a particular person, and it is supported by numerous other players, there may be some tension between the players and that particular person.
—Continue—
What kind of message is the team supposed to get when a head coach suspends a player who seems to have broken exactly zero NCAA rules and is being investigated for, as far as we know, merely trying to receive unemployment benefits during a pandemic?
That’s not what having your player’s back looks like.
What kind of loyalty does that show? How about putting up a fight on behalf of that player rather than drastic measures like suspension, when it seems like McClain broke no USC or NCAA rules? This decision came from the athletic department only, and if you’re a USC football player right now, you have every right to question your school’s commitment to you on and off the field.
It also feels relevant to discuss this in the context of USC’s branding partnership with J1S, which was announced Thursday with a video depicting USC players seeming to get along just fine with Helton. But these things aren’t mutually exclusive.
USC players can appreciate an opportunity likely aided by the coaching staff while simultaneously questioning its judgement surrounding McClain—especially considering the irony of suspending a college athlete for trying to make money just before opening up opportunities for college athletes to…make money (again, assuming McClain’s actions were totally legal).
Again, this is speculation. If there’s something USC knows that I don’t, I’ll adjust this take accordingly. Maybe this tension doesn’t exist. But as of now, it appears McClain is the victim of two unreasonable attacks: one by the FBI, one by his university.
Clay Helton won’t get fired because he suspended Munir McClain—in all likelihood, that decision was endorsed by the athletic department higher-ups. But if this snowballs into something broader—namely, an unrepairable animosity from USC football players toward their head coach—the only incentive to keep Helton around will be gone.
If that animosity exists—and recent events suggest it may—Helton’s seat may be hotter than ever before USC even takes the field in 2020.
You can watch Ackerman’s companion Trojan Dash Sports Talk Show on Dash Sports TV, and read his other work at the Daily Trojan.
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