The news have come around southern California. Pat Haden is stepping down in June.
The football team has a long, proud history of winning. Unfortunately, Pat Haden's tenure as AD was marked with terrible coaching hires, off-the-field controversy, and mediocre results.
The last successful Trojan football year was 2011, when the team was a fumble against a superiorly talented Furd who were in the midst of a 17-game winning streak and a fluke loss to ASU away from a perfect season.
Of the course, the Trojans were sanctioned that year and banned from postseason play. I thought we would have beaten Oregon again in Eugene, and save the Baby Bears from yet another embarrassment. Remember, the Baby Bears went became the first team to go 6-8 in a season, losing 50-0 to us, 49-31 against the Ducks, and 20-14 to an equally dysfunctional Illinois squad.
We have to go back to 2008 for the last Trojan team to find the last team who won the conference and played in a major bowl game.
Under Pat Haden, the Trojans have had 4 coaches the last 4 years: Lane Kiffin, Ed Orgeron, Steve Sarkisian, and Clay Helton.
These are a bunch of misses that Trojan fans should not have to go through. Of course, it is too early to judge Clay Helton accurately yet, but Clay Helton could be 0-3 as permanent head coach by next September. This is how Pat Haden should have handled the coaching situation.
Meanwhile, there have been 3 splash hirings in college football, and none have involved SC. Instead, we witnessed the Ohio State hiring Urban Meyer, Michigan hiring Jim Harbaugh, and Georgia hiring Kirby Smart. That's it. Only 3 splash hirings in college football. None involving SC.
Pat Haden made a predictable, safe hire with Clay Helton. Safe hires will likely yield safe results.
There's no question that Clay Helton can recruit. After all, recruiting at SC is not hard. SC has the money, facilities, winning tradition, and recruiting hotbeds in southern California to compete with the SEC and UM and the Ohio State for the top recruits.
Now, SC needs to win now because Furd and Oregon have run away with the Pac-12. SC was the last team other than the Furd and Oregon to win the conference, and that was back in 2008. In addition, SC is falling way behind other national powerhouses, notably Bama, Oklahoma, and the Ohio State.
Pat Haden's time at the Coliseum is over by June. Now, Clay Helton's clock is ticking. He needs to make a major bowl game and win the Pac-12 now because the Trojans are too talented to underachieve.
