The Athletic had a story by Bruce Feldman on the decline of USC football under Clay Helton. It was a lengthy and interesting article that pin pointed a number of reason's why Helton failed - primarily because he had no control of his assistants:
As far as recruiting went, there was a lot of dead weight on Helton’s staff. Former defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast was never too interested in recruiting. Neither was former secondary coach Ronnie Bradford nor offensive line coach Neil Callaway. “He had guys on the staff who he let not recruit at all,” one of the former assistants said.
But what I found interesting was this nugget on the star system in recruiting:
...... the Trojans signed players who were simply overrated by the recruiting services. “USC always is gonna be ranked top 10 in recruiting but that’s because when you commit to USC you’re all of a sudden ‘a great’ recruit,’” one of the former assistants said. “We had coaches in the building who knew the guys at (the recruiting sites) and they’d call them, ‘Hey I need you to rate this kid as a 4-star before I take his commitment.’ That’s the way that stuff works.
I guess people might want to keep that in mind the next time they see that a committed player gets a sudden bump from a 3 star to a 4 star.
As far as recruiting went, there was a lot of dead weight on Helton’s staff. Former defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast was never too interested in recruiting. Neither was former secondary coach Ronnie Bradford nor offensive line coach Neil Callaway. “He had guys on the staff who he let not recruit at all,” one of the former assistants said.
But what I found interesting was this nugget on the star system in recruiting:
...... the Trojans signed players who were simply overrated by the recruiting services. “USC always is gonna be ranked top 10 in recruiting but that’s because when you commit to USC you’re all of a sudden ‘a great’ recruit,’” one of the former assistants said. “We had coaches in the building who knew the guys at (the recruiting sites) and they’d call them, ‘Hey I need you to rate this kid as a 4-star before I take his commitment.’ That’s the way that stuff works.
I guess people might want to keep that in mind the next time they see that a committed player gets a sudden bump from a 3 star to a 4 star.
