From a relatively calm Sunday announcement that changes will take place at the end of the season to a head coach letting go of a close family friend Monday. Now that’s leadership from behind door #1 at Heritage Hall. The real message here wasn’t the firing of the Offensive Line coach Neil Calloway it was the lack of knowledge by the head coach, Clay Helton, who on Sunday told the media it would be end of season. Boom, Neil is out of a job and Tee Martin is now no longer calling the plays that will be Clay and in a weird twist of fate or what the hell they keep Tee Martin. His role isn’t clear but I suppose his locker room conduct will be under tight watch but he will have access to the wide receivers and be consulting on the Offensive side to Clay. Why?
If you are going to make really difficult long term decisions you cut once. You make it count and you move on. The 2019 recruitment class and the season ticket holders see this as a bandaid not a real commitment to the future. Clay hit is ceiling the day before he started the job. It was right there. No resume. No references for such a job as the head coach of Tier One Power Five school. Nothing. A Rhodes Scholar would have seen that a mile a way. Oh, shoot, one did see him face to face. LOL. If it wasn’t so pathetic I would laugh.
Clay is a good person. A great family man who wears it on his sleeve. He did what any of us would have done and took the brass ring. Many fail when reaching out too soon. I did. I founded my own company only to fold the tent 2 years later. Complete failure but I told the team that we would shut it down if after two years we hadn’t reached a particular company goal. I failed I paid for it. I moved on.
This decision today was not Clay’s. It was sloppy to allow him to look like a fool coming from his comments on Sunday. The administration showed its amateur status by not informing him of this and letting him tell the media what he did on Sunday. Classless act #88 and USC. Clay Helton deserved to be told Mondays plan on Sunday and USC showed its lack of class and care in managing the message. They are now at serious risk to paint a picture of some level of confidence to the recruits and their families and oh by the way the fans who pay for those seats on Friday and Saturday. Yes the fans matter. Sorry the internet is brutal but the fans matter. Time is short and a phased announcement towards the inevitable is not wise right now. Take the hit once and take the big steps right away.
Fight On.
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