USC 'a couple plays away' from beating Notre Dame, a coaching change away from beating anybody

USC had its chances to beat Notre Dame. Clay Helton has had his chances to beat his baseline as a first-time head coach. The former won't change until USC changes the latter.

USC had its chances to beat Notre Dame. Clay Helton has had his chances to beat his baseline as a first-time head coach. The former won't change until USC changes the latter.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- A relatively minor midfield fracas broke out between USC and Notre Dame at halftime, after most players from both teams had already sprinted off the field and toward the locker room. Frustration had clearly set in for the Trojans, after a dismal first half that left them trailing by two touchdowns. When an official announced the infraction -- unsportsmanlike conduct assessed to each member of each team -- he accidentally referred to USC as “UCLA.”

It was a funny but fitting flub that wasn’t even heard by either team yet caused an uproar among the 77,622 people in the stands at Notre Dame Stadium, and about a hundred more in the press box. The slip-up wouldn’t have resonated in such a way had, say, USC dominated the first half.

In the final moments of Notre Dame’s 30-27 win, while the Fighting Irish took a knee in about the same spot as the scuffle occurred, much of the crowd called upon the referee’s earlier gaffe and began chanting, “U-C-L-A!”

The reference added insult to insult, but it was incorrect. After 60 minutes, USC had played just like USC under Clay Helton.

Not well enough to beat a good team but enough to convince you it could have. Or perhaps should have. There isn’t a talent disparity between the 5-1 Fighting Irish and 3-3 Trojans. The 11-point opening line in favor of Notre Dame was more a reflection of coaching.

“We’re good enough to win that game,” offensive coordinator Graham Harrell said. “In the first half they find ways to get stops. During the second half, when they had to have a big drive, they go on a seven-minute drive. They make one more play than we did. Is it a game we could have won? For sure we could have won. We feel like we could have won any game, and we’re good enough to beat anyone.”

They just don’t. These days, it’s something they do as much as they don’t. USC is now 8-10 since Sam Darnold departed and 14-16 with Helton when Darnold wasn’t the starting quarterback. That’s not a trend. That’s a type. 

Exactly four years to the week since Helton took over as the interim coach, leading an underdog USC team to a hopeful but humbling defeat to Notre Dame in his first game that left the team with a .500 mark, the Trojans found themselves in the exact same position Saturday after their valiant rally from a 17-point deficit in the second half fell short.

“It’s going to be a long ride home with a lot of heartbreak and sadness,” Helton said.

Safety Isaiah Pola-Mao added: “If we take a couple plays away, we’re winning this game.”

For some reason, the sentiments reminded me of a moment from 2001, when a 1-3 Trojans quad still looking to launch under Pete Carroll, pushed unbeaten Washington at Husky Stadium before ultimately falling to a game-winning field goal. As the story goes, Carroll offered a half-hearted postgame handshake to Rick Neuheisel and told him USC would beat them next year.

Neuheisel said he wasn’t necessarily offended because he understood Carroll’s actions as a result of his competitiveness. That nature, of course, manifested throughout the program. The Trojans not only beat the Huskies the following season but nearly everyone else for the next seven years.

More important, at least as it concerns Helton, is that Carroll was said to be kicking himself in the aftermath of that 2001 loss to Washington because he knew USC was good enough to win that day and good enough to be winning in general -- but it didn’t and wasn’t. And it was on him to figure out why and change it.

The program was coming off a 5-7 campaign then as well but in a markedly different spot. Carroll was trying to get it off the ground after a decade of indifference. A last-second loss to a superior opponent convinced Carroll, who had the benefit of two NFL head coaching stints and a year off prior to taking the USC job, that through five games he was building a foundation with the right bricks.

After 54 games under Helton, the Trojans still lack structure. He didn't have to win at Carroll's rate (.836) to keep his job. He just couldn't keep winning at his own (.629), which has now sunk below those of Lane Kiffin (.651) and Larry Smith (.632).

“Do I feel like we should have won?” Helton echoed after I posed that question at the end of his postgame presser. “No. We didn’t do enough in the first half to put ourselves in position. … As a team, collectively, staff, players, everybody, we came up short today. That’s the fact of the matter.”

The fact is four years into Helton’s USC tenure, he’s run out of time to find answers that would elevate the position of the program. Three losses by the halfway point of a prove-it season have made it a formality that he’ll be held accountable for his record later this fall. It’s as inevitable as his next loss.

“It’s our job over the next six weeks to make sure that doesn’t happen so we can win the Pac-12 title and see y’all in the Rose Bowl,” Helton proclaimed. “That’s our goal and it will continue to be. We control our own destiny.”

The team does in the conference, but he doesn’t at USC anymore. There was no margin for error with the fan base before the season. There’s now none with a yet-to-be-hired athletic director, who will be tasked with relieving him of his duties unless the administration changes its stance on allowing him to finish this season and does the dirty work itself.

The only real suspense remaining is whether the coaching situation will be mismanaged like the team often is.

Its best running back got 10 carries on a night in which he repeatedly dragged defenders for first downs and eventually a touchdown. When asked for the upteenth time why Markese Stepp’s role isn’t bigger, Helton asserted it was since he was the sole leader in rushing attempts -- he had one more than Stephen Carr and two more than Vavae Malepeai.

Two weeks ago, the promising power back merely co-led in carries. He got a modest 10 in each game and still turned it into 82 yards Saturday, raising his season average to 6.8 yards a pop.

“I think we gave it to him about as many as he can handle,” Harrell said. “He was sucking wind, from what I understand. But he’s special with the ball in his hands, he’s a heck of a player. He did a nice job. He could probably handle a few more carries. But we got three special backs, and we like them all.”

Stepp bristled at the notion that he was out of breath, likely realizing its implication that he couldn’t take on more touches.

“When you’re carrying like six people, you tend to get winded,” he said. “That’s a lot of people. Yeah, I got a little winded. … Whatever they throw at me. I think I can handle as many carries as they give me, to be honest.”

It’s become painfully obvious that if the running backs are getting about 30 carries, Stepp needs more than a third of them. Just like it was again clear the Trojans should run more against another defenses designed to limit damage through the air.

Harrell acknowledged he didn’t anticipate Notre Dame employing a different defense than what they’d shown on film, as if the successful schemes of BYU and Washington weren’t well documented.

Six first-half possessions produced just three points, despite USC not turning the ball over. Harrell said he didn’t make any notable adjustments at halftime outside of getting the play calls in quicker so that the players wouldn’t dwell on negative plays.

“In the first half, the plays were the same. We just missed a couple of them,” Harrell said, suggesting the players needed time to decipher what they were seeing and feeling. “… At times, especially in big games, you just try to do too much, you put too much pressure on yourself.”

Senior Michael Pittman has a long track record of delivering on such occasions but was virtually silenced with four catches for 29 yards. Notre Dame committed two defenders on him throughout -- a press cornerback and a safety over the top -- with Coach Brian Kelly later revealing it was his plan all along to take Pittman out of the game. USC didn’t line up its leading receiver inside or motion him, thus making it easy to be marked.

Defensively, the Trojans coalesced in the first quarter. True to form under DC Clancy Pendergast, they broke in the second, allowing two long TD drives and a field goal.

Kelly, who's gotten the best of Helton three times in a row in South Bend and overall, was again one step ahead of the USC staff despite a week less of preparation, using motions as a decoy for inside runs. The Trojans' shoddy run defense had mostly been stout between the tackles this season, but the players said play-action disrupted their pass rush, while the many offensive variations had them off balance and sometimes out of alignment.

The Fighting Irish would eventually attack the edges, at times isolating defensive end Christian Rector, who’s playing though an ankle sprain. Their 308 rushing yards allowed them to control the clock and limit how often USC’s offense, which heated up in the second half and scored on all four of its possessions, took the field.

Trailing by three late in the fourth quarter, the Trojans only needed to hold Notre Dame to a field goal, something they’ve done more than anyone in the country. No team has allowed as many field goals as USC's 16. But a pair of scrambles from quarterback Ian Book resulted in a third-down conversion and the game-deciding touchdown.

“The first run was on us, as a defensive line,” defensive tackle Brandon Pili said. “We were out of our gap. Actually both of them were. We didn’t run the right call. It was our fault.”

To USC’s credit, nobody was absolving himself of blame for the loss afterward. Harrell, when asked a final time what else caused such a quiet first half on offense, said his unit missed signals as well.

“We got to be disciplined enough to do our job for 60 minutes,” he lamented. “Myself and our team and everyone.”

Harrell, whose presence has had as much impact on the team as anyone in 2019, just summed up not only his first year at USC but the Helton era. As the latter approaches its final hour, the only change left to see from it is its conclusion.

-- Adam Maya is a USC graduate and has been covering the Trojans since 2003. Follow him on Twitter @AdamJMaya.