Pac-12: Former Arizona Football Coach Donte Williams takes helm at USC

USC fans got their wish, after a huge loss to Stanford (42-28) last Saturday as Clay Helton was let go. Former CB Coach for Arizona Football Coach Donte Williams takes over.

USC fans got what they have been wanting for years, the firing of their head football coach Clay Helton. As a result, former Arizona Football cornerback coach Donte Williams has been promoted.

Named as USC’s interim head coach by USC Director of Athletics Mike Bohn, Williams is the first black coach in USC history.

Following his promotion, the school put out this Tweet announcing Williams as the head coach, “The city runs through his veins. Introducing our Interim Head Coach, Donte Williams.” It is not going to be easy for Williams who wants to focus on now and not the future, how will things just change overnight when the players are in tears? (see below)

Donte Williams was the cornerback’s coach at Arizona under coach Rich Rodriguez in 2016, before leaving for what was rumored to be a lot more money to coach at Nebraska the following year.

Before USC, Williams served as the University of Oregon Ducks cornerbacks coach as well, and in February of 2020, Williams was hired as USC’s cornerback’s coach and he is known to be one of the nation’s top recruiters. This will be his fifth job in five years.

Ironically, Williams takes over for Helton who got his job the same way. As you may recall, USC Fired their then head coach Lane Kiffin, now the Head Coach at Ole Miss, on the Tarmac at the airport. They wouldn’t let him on the bus and he was without his luggage. Kiffin commented on Helton’s release during an SEC press conference:

"“I feel for Clay,” Kiffin said on Wednesday on the SEC coaches media teleconference. “Clay is a great person… I can relate to being fired early in the year there. … I feel for him. That’s about all I got on that.”"

This past Saturday, Arizona Football was embarrassed by losing to San Diego State, but god forbid USC is embarrassed, the head coach loses his job. They should have let him go earlier but we are assuming they wanted to keep the players around.

You would also assume that when Helton, a winning coach with a  46-24 record (a record Arizona fans would be envious of), was fired, that the players would be happy. After all, Arizona players were mostly happy or had already transferred out before Arizona’s Dave Heeke let Kevin Sumlin and all his personal problems go.

But that was not the case at USC according to Pete Thamel. “Players were in tears at the news today. Former players love Helton. He brought class and dignity to USC football, which desperately needed it. Can’t overstate what a good human being Clay Helton is,” Thamel wrote.

The demanding fan base and most of the media were cruel for so long, and especially yesterday saying Helton deserved it because the school threw money at the program and he should have brought home a national championship.

Trojan fans are out of touch with reality, they are out of touch with the players and they are missing that Helton is an upstanding coach who is great at recruiting and representing the school and program. His team wins games twice as much as they lose games. Wouldn’t Tucson be happy with that type of record?

In the Front Row’s, Fredo Cervantes didn’t hold back when asking Coach Helton about his failure to be successful according to the fans. Helton answered graciously saying that he loved USC and coaching with a fan base that demanded excellence and he and his program strive to rise to the occasion.

Consider Stanford Coach David Shaw. His team lost two weeks ago badly to Kansas State (24-7). Stanford allowed three rushing touchdowns and a field goal. But Stanford fans believe in Coach Shaw who is 91-37 at Stanford. Shaw did his thing with his team and came back to beat USC at home, and not by a little.

At one time, USC was down 35-13 after the third quarter and LA Times writer Ryan Kartje called the loss a thrashing, said the fans booed the coach during the halftime interview. USC was a 17-point favorite.

What was Helton’s response?

"“Let’s see at the end of the year,” Helton said. “Let’s see. It’s Game 2. It’s Game 2. I have total faith in this staff. I have total faith in the men that are in there, players, coaches. We didn’t play our best tonight. But I know this. At the end of the season, see where we’re at.”"

A reasonable response for an unreasonable fan base. Now their team has a coach who jumps from college to college and players who were in tears, they just got rid of their mentor, protector, and motivator.

The student-athletes signed up to play for USC because of Helton. Clay was always respectful to us, gave us great answers, was very proud of what he had accomplished at USC, and Arizona fans would have been lucky to have him, instead of Kevin Sumlin. I am sure Khalil Tate would have had a much better ending to his college career including starting on Senior night.

All that said, even though Arizona fans felt deflated about Arizona’s loss to San Diego St., we are all still happy with the direction of the program and are looking forward to the future under Coach Jedd Fisch. But what if Helton was let go at the end of last season? Hmm.