Clay Helton: Graham Harrell 'is making all the calls' for USC

There are at least two sides to every story, and Clay Helton doubled down on his Sunday night.

While many are questioning whether he took over play-calling during USC’s overtime loss to BYU, Helton reiterated that duty belonged to and was solely executed by offensive coordinator Graham Harrell.

"Whether it's offense, defense or special teams, I communicate with each coordinator and we discuss what's going on in the game. Ultimately, Graham's making all the calls and I thought he did a great job,” Helton said. “We're seeing drop eight and all of a sudden we're handing the ball off 45 times for 171 yards. That's what the game dictated and that's what the offense [does] -- it takes what the defense gives you. You look up and you have 452 yards of offense, which is the most that's been put on BYU thus far, but we made the critical errors -- three critical errors that stopped drives and led to 10 points, and that's the difference in the game.

“But I thought the communication was good as far as exactly what was going on and that the ball needed to be run, and then Graham did a great job of staying patient, staying disciplined and kept on giving it to some good backs and a good offensive line who maintained the line of scrimmage."

Harrell did not address the media following the upset in Provo, as he did immediately after the previous two games. Among the notable developments from the loss were USC throwing just 34 passes, compared to 43 rushing attempts (QB Kedon Slovis was also sacked twice), and running on the first two plays in overtime, which set up a fateful third-and-6.

"Graham called the plays based on what he felt was going on in the game,” Helton explained. “We felt like we were running the ball pretty good. … We're sitting there, I'm thinking it's second-and-10, second-and-11 maybe, I thought it was a good call by Graham to get third-and-manageable. ...

"(We call) a third-down spacing play, if you go through the read correctly there is a man open, so I thought Graham called a good game. You can always go hindsight after the game, but I thought Graham, for what everybody says is Air Raid, did a wonderful job staying disciplined while the defense was dropping eight and continuing to run the ball."

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The Trojans weren’t consistently effective on the ground, despite BYU’s light front. They averaged 4.2 yards a carry, whereas Slovis averaged 8.2 yards an attempt. He had only 34 of them, however, which is what JT Daniels had in the first half against Fresno State. It’s that conservative tenor, in a game that remained in the balance, that has many still wondering whether Harrell was directing USC’s offensive attack throughout.

Harrell is expected to address the media after practice Monday. His observation on Slovis’ struggles will also be of note. Helton said the true freshman didn’t always play within the offense in getting picked off three times. This would include the final play of the game, which saw Slovis force a throw underneath to Drake London while Michael Pittman stood open on the left side. Interestingly, both receivers were situated before the first-down marker.

"There was some times, and he'll even say it, that he skipped a progression,” Helton said of Slovis. “We say reads are sacred and don't get bored, stick with your progressions, stick with your reads and there's some times that he just got locked in and guessed a couple times. He'll even say that.”

Slovis did say it, in fact, noting he was sometimes frustrated by the lack of passing windows and didn’t utilize his checkdowns often enough. While just two of his 24 completions surpassed 15 yards, he forced several throws and was fortunate to avoid at least two more interceptions.

“It's a little bit being young, a little bit seeing something that maybe is not there,” Helton said. “He's still a kid that completed 70 percent of his balls and put us in a position to win, but had three critical errors. At the end of the day, he'll live and learn from them. We're hoping he does just like Sam [Darnold] did in 2016, learn from them and move on and go to the next game and improve."

Just a week after Slovis’ first start elicited favorable comparisons to Darnold for how it sparked the program, Helton was drawing further parallels to three years ago in the wake of another loss in the state of Utah.

"They're going through some growing pains and making a couple mistakes that they're going to live and learn from and get better with each game,” Helton said. “And this is a team, just like that team in 2016, if they stay the course at the end of the year they're going to be a really good football team.

"Now, can they accomplish the things that the 2016 team did? We'll see. But I feel really good about them, about where they are mentally, about the skill that they've got around them and how they're all pulling together.”

The Trojans, of course, reeled off nine consecutive wins in 2016, including the Rose Bowl. Helton might need another such run to save his job.

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