College Football

Clay Helton continues to adapt approach with USC Trojans

Updated Dec. 13, 2022 3:12 p.m. ET

By RJ Young
FOX Sports College Football Writer

USC coach Clay Helton has forced himself to adapt.

After relying on a ball-control offense and physical defense to lead the Trojans to a No. 3 ranking at the end of the 2016 season, he saw the deterioration of his team by 2018.

His program lost just six games in 2016 and 2017 combined but then lost seven in 2018 alone. He hired a former head coach with an Air Raid base to run his offense in Kliff Kingsbury, only to lose him to a head-coaching gig in the NFL in just a few weeks’ time.

No matter. He hired another offensive mind with an Air Raid base in Graham Harrell. Then he watched quarterback Kedon Slovis form an explosive combination with receiver Michael Pittman.

In 2019, Pittman caught 101 balls for 1,275 yards with 11 TDs in an offense in which leading rusher Vavae Malepeai carried the ball just 105 times.

After losing his second- and third-leading rushers to the portal this spring, Helton expects receiver Drake London to be just as prolific as Pittman — if not more.

When Helton looks at London, he sees Tampa Bay receiver Mike Evans.

"Now, we really feel, to be honest with you, that Drake's potential can [allow him to] line up anywhere. You’ll see him on the outside this year. I really think he's going to be more Mike Evans-ish at the end of the day," Helton said on this week's episode of "The No. 1-Ranked Show."

"I think he's going to be Mike Evans. I've watched it in the spring where we've moved him outside some, and man, he has been dynamic. I mean, he is a nightmare."

The USC offense grew from averaging 26.1 points per game (2018) to 32.5 points per game (2019) to 33.3 points per game (2020) and the first top-25 finish for the program in three years.

After finishing 64th overall and dead-last in the Pac-12 in the 247 Composite team recruiting rankings in 2020 and losing the commitment of five-star QB Bryce Young to Alabama, Helton overhauled his recruiting department.

The Trojans bounced back with a No. 7 finish in the 2021 team rankings, including the signing of the No. 1 player in the class and former Clemson commit Korey Foreman.

Now, Helton believes he’s just a few players away from rounding out a roster that can compete for national titles once more, and he’s adding those players through the transfer portal. One of those is Colorado transfer and receiver K.D. Nixon, who has averaged 12.0 yards per catch for his career.

"I think of a K.D. Nixon, a 104-reception guy from Colorado, that comes on to be able to bolster our wideouts," Helton said. "I think there's some pieces that each school picks to bring in. We’ve turned into an NFL free-agent market, to be honest with you. And if we have the availability to get to 85, to 85 total men on scholarships, you'll pick those certain men to be able to come in and help your program."

Clay Helton's Trojans, with QB Kedon Slovis at the helm, should be explosive through the air in 2021. (Photo by Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

In the past 15 years, college football has undergone a seismic shift in how players arrive at programs.

The advent of the transfer portal is perhaps the largest of those shifts – with yet another still on the way in name, image and likeness legislation – and it has come with many unintended consequences.

Alongside the redshirt rule, which allows FBS players to participate in up to four games without losing the ability to redshirt for the remainder of the season and the newly implemented one-time transfer rule, the transfer portal has become a centralized destination for what some have called "free agency" in college football.

In this sense, they are correct: Once a player notifies the NCAA compliance department at his school that he would like to enter it and does, every one of the 129 other FBS programs will know it, too.

Players are often looking for a new destination, a new start, for myriad reasons. Many have decried these recent rule changes, claiming they are hurt the integrity of the game and allow players to avoid competition and conflict on a loaded depth chart.

Indeed, there’s a push from some coaches that parents ought to take a more active role in forcing their kid(s) to finish at the school they signed a letter of intent to play for.

"Big Noon Kickoff" analyst Bob Stoops mentioned the mere idea of transferring away from Iowa after his freshman year one too many times to his father and suffered the verbal consequences.

"Had I left, who knows where my life goes," Stoops said on The No. 1-Ranked Show, "but I sure wouldn't have had all the opportunities I've had if I had cut out of there. So my dad giving me some tough love went along the way. I encourage parents out there, anyone listening: Don't be afraid to give a little bit of tough love once in a while if you think it's necessary."

North Carolina coach Mack Brown has taken the opposite approach for the same reason. Like Stoops, he wants players to have a good time, even if having fun might mean no longer playing for him.

He asks only that his players talk to him about why they’re unhappy so he can help them find contentment.

"Let's have that conversation," Brown said on The No. 1-Ranked Show. "I'll call the coaches. I'll talk to him. Because we've said we want to have fun, and we want you to be happy. And if you're not happy here, let's not be mad. Let's don't pout, let's don't get angry, let's find you the place where you can be happy. And then we'll get you in the portal and help you go wherever you want to go. And that's what we've done."

Helton believes the same. After signing five-star quarterback JT Daniels in 2019, he watched him go into the portal and come out at Georgia in 2020.

He doesn’t hold a grudge, and he understands the changing world of college football because the job is the same to him, and he’s used it not unlike an NFL general manager.

In spring 2020 alone, he welcomed three former Texas players in running back Keaontay Ingram, defensive back Xavion Alford and tight end Malcolm Epps from the portal.

"I think that what schools will do, we'll use that transfer portal kind of like I remember Les Snead did an amazing job with the Rams a couple years ago," Helton said.

"They thought about, with them being a playoff team and they wanted to get the Super Bowl there, they brought in an Ndamukong Suh. They brought in Marcus Peters. They brought in (Aqib) Talib, and just those acquisitions took them from a playoff team to a Super Bowl team. I think that's what you're going to have to do as we move forward in this transfer portal."

The portal might be a harbinger not just of what is to come for the sport but also for the hopes of USC football.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young. Subscribe to "No. 1 Ranked Show w/ RJ Young" on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. He is not on a StepMill.