LOS ANGELES — “Clay Helton walks in the room after Nick Saban or Urban Meyer, and nobody thinks, ‘That’s a real guy,’” a former USC assistant coach, one who had been celebrated for his work on the recruiting trail for more than a decade, told The Athletic. “We had some assistants who were more recognizable than the head coach. When the heavy hitters came in — Saban, Urban Meyer, Dabo — it was the ultimate checkmate. It wasn’t anything against him (Helton). He did the best by the kids. He tried to treat everybody right, but how does USC not even end up in the top 30 nationally? (In 2020, USC had the nation’s No. 64 recruiting class — 12th in the Pac-12.) That should never happen. Never.”
And that was what he pointed to, that recruiting dynamic, when asked how USC lost its way. Regardless of on-field results, USC has traditionally been viewed as the most talented team in the Pac-12. Now, it’ll simply take the eye test or some recruiting calculations to tell you that title belongs to Oregon.
From 2009 to 2018, USC had five recruiting classes ranked in the top four nationally and nine top-10 classes. But when the NFL opened the 2021 regular season, USC wasn’t even among the top 20 programs with players on NFL rosters for Week 1. (In 2016, the Trojans were tied for second.
