Column: Clay Helton often goes unnoticed, but he deserves credit for USC’s success

Earlier this fall, like any good college father, Clay Helton rushed out of work to attend his son’s USC freshman orientation.

He showed up still wearing his football coaching attire, and his wife, Angela, was aghast.

“Babe, this is orientation, you’re a Dad, you’re not supposed to be the head coach,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Helton responded. “Nobody is going to recognize us anyway.”

Nobody did. Nobody does. The biggest secret about the resurgence of the most glittering group in college football is that it was engineered by a guy whom you still couldn’t pick out of a sideline.

Now that the Trojans are on the verge of returning to the Rose Bowl for the first time in eight years — they should be selected Sunday if common sense prevails — everyone is falling all over themselves to credit everyone but the guy who brought them there.

You say it’s Sam Darnold’s team? The coach gave him the job, stepped to the side, and let him shine.

You say it’s Adoree’ Jackson’s moment? The coach set the tone that unleashed his skills, stepped to the side, and let him dance.

USC Coach Clay Helton is seen on the sideline during a game against Washington on Nov. 12.

(Elaine Thompson / Associated Press )

He’ll never acknowledge it, and there are stubborn critics who will never believe it, but make no mistake, these are the Trojans of Clay Helton.

When they started slow, he took their heat, stood in front of their mistakes, became the fall guy as the blitzing critics screamed for his head.

“If you’re 1-3 at USC, you deserve to get talked about, that’s just a fact,” he says. “If you can’t handle it, don’t take the job. This is a thick-skinned business.”

When it was time to change quarterbacks, he did it. When it was time to change philosophies, he evolved. The incredible gains made by this USC program during its eight-game win streak happened only because the coach was willing to shed his pride, listen to his staff, and learn with his kids.

It happened only because the coach didn’t make it all about the coach.

“I think we all grew, including myself,” Helton says.

Now that they are once again the class of the Pac-12 with seemingly the brightest future since the Pete Carroll era, the entire atmosphere around the program seems changed…except, of course, for the man running it.

A year ago, when I visited with Helton and wrote a column urging USC to make him its permanent coach, I felt like I was hanging out with part-teacher, part-preacher, and mostly old-fashioned football guy.

This week, same thing, same guy, same spartan office, same couch where he sleeps three times a week, same uncluttered desk where he watches film until 1 a.m.

Same soft drawl when he talks about his players like they’re family. Same chicken wings cooked for him by his wife on his return home every Thursday, even on Thanksgiving, and how he loves to talk about the wonders of “Miss Angela.”

He also has the same quiet look of reverence when he talks about his job, even after it put him through several kinds of hell during the first part of this season.

“I’ve always believed the coach is a servant to university and to his kids,” he says. “It’s not about the coaches, it’s about the gift of working 18-to-21-year-olds, and I’ll always keep it like that.”

He loved USC even when the Trojans family didn’t seem to love him back. Immediately after Helton was named permanent head coach late last year, the Trojans lost five of their next six games spanning two seasons. At that point, the blogs, not to mention many boosters, already had him fired and were searching for a replacement.

When asked whether he thought he was going to lose his job back then, he pauses and says, “I don’t know … I don’t know … I was hoping not, being in Year 1, but I know the reality of the business. In today’s time, one bad year could equal change.”

Publicly, he never wavered from his belief in his team. Privately, he would haunt McKay Center late at night, bouncing off that couch, searching for the solutions.

“Mercy, I would wake up at 3 a.m every morning, just thinking about stuff, worrying about the next step,” he says. “I would get up, get a glass of water, walk around, lay back down, be back up at 5.”

It turns out, his greatest sleep aid would be the installation of Darnold as the starting quarterback ahead of program veteran Max Browne before the season’s fourth game at Utah. But while many thought he should have made that obvious move before the season opener, his initial loyalty to Browne led to trust from his players that set the tone for the late-season success.

“Max was a quarterback that everybody on the team respected, a captain, a leader,” Helton says. “I went with experience, and I would do it again.”

At the same time Darnold was changing the aura of the team, Helton was also changing its essence by pulling off the restraints that had hindered a new and uncertain roster and staff. After a conservative punt call set up a long game-winning drive for Utah, everything changed.

“In that situation I would do the same thing again,” Helton says, but then acknowledged, “After the Utah game, we did become a more aggressive team, taking chances, playing aggressive, playing with our hair on fire, telling them, ‘Let’s drive it like we stole it.’”

They didn’t lose again, and Helton’s hold on the team got only stronger, that trust carrying the team to those eight wins, a domination of eventual Pac-12 champion Washington in Seattle, and a cool moment a couple of weeks later in the rout of Notre Dame.

After Ajene Harris returned an interception for a touchdown, he literally fought through celebrating players to hand the ball to Helton. Then, after Jackson scored his third touchdown of the game on a kick return and did a Heisman pose, Helton just laughed.

“It’s raining, they’re dancing, they’re having fun, they’re playing Notre Dame to win eight in a row and I’m thinking, man, why not celebrate this,” says Helton. “If I could dance like them, I probably would.”

And you probably still wouldn’t notice him. And the most important, most invisible Trojan probably still wouldn’t care.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

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