SOUTH BEND, Ind. — USC coach Clay Helton didn’t get fired on an airport tarmac Saturday night, which meant he survived the first six games everyone said would be so tough for the Trojans.
Notre Dame beat the Trojans 30-27 at Notre Dame Stadium, dropping the Trojans to an unimpressive 3-3 overall record.
“We got a long ride home with a lot of heartbreak and sadness,” Helton said after the game.
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But the embattled coach still has a road map for survival at the halfway mark of the season.
USC has six regular season games left, and Helton probably needs victories in at least five of those games to save his job. That means he needs to beat Colorado, UCLA and at least three of the following teams: Arizona, Oregon, Arizona State and California.
Helton at least seemed buoyed by nearly upsetting the Irish.
“Notre Dame is a good football team, and so are we,” Helton said. “We control our own destiny."
In the cannibalistic Pac-12, it could be a daunting task to win four more games — especially when you consider how up-and-down USC can be in a single game.
The Trojans scored only three points against Notre Dame in the first half, then scored on every second-half drive for 24 points, outscoring the Irish 24-13 in the near-upset.
“We came away from the first half feeling that we left points on the board,” USC quarterback Kedon Slovis said.
The defense limited the Irish to a pair of field goals in the second half, but right when it had all the momentum in the fourth quarter, it wilted.
Slovis threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Tyler Vaughns to cut the Irish’s lead to three points (23-20). However, Notre Dame (5-1) promptly went 75 yards in 14 plays and 6:54 of game clock to score on quarterback Ian Book’s 8-yard run with 3:33 remaining in the game.
That allowed the Irish to keep its season relevant and USC to claim a moral victory, if it wanted. But Helton declined that tactic. Asked if USC should have won, he said, “No.”
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Helton did get a compliment from Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly.
“This team had a bite,” Kelly said. “They had bite to them. This team has some fight to it. You could feel that out there."
USC has a bite, but Helton often muzzles the Trojans. He plays freshman tailback Markese Stepp as the No. 3 tailback, despite the fact Stepp rumbled through the Notre Dame defense all night with 82 yards in 10 carries.
Why didn’t Stepp play more?
"We gave it to him about as many as he could handle,” offensive coordinator Graham Harrell said. “He was sucking wind from what I understand."
Again, Stepp had 10 carries — a far cry from legendary USC coach John McKay’s philosophy, who once said, “It’s not heavy” when asked why he gave O.J. Simpson 47 carries in a game. In Helton’s world, it’s better to have three happy tailbacks split the carries than let the best back get 25 carries.
But what if that causes you to lose your job?
New USC president Carol Folt was on the sideline Saturday night, five weeks after she fired athletic director Lynn Swann. But she already said it’s not her job to decide coaching positions. Unless she just decides it is her job.
If Helton wins seven games, he should expect to be fired. If he wins eight, a new athletic director might make a change anyways. A win over a historic rival might have changed that, but the loss in Notre Dame keeps things murky for another week.
As usual, the only certainty at USC is the uncertainty.