LOS ANGELES -- Cmon, Clay Helton. You know you want to. Heres your chance. Heres your chance to tell all the college football experts to go do something anatomically impossible.All he does is give a hearty laugh.Not my style, Helton said. Not my style.Helton is the former soon-to-be-former USC coach. He spent the first month of his first head coaching season hearing why he shouldnt get a second. Now Helton is the middle of his third month, and his No. 13 Trojans are 7-3 with a six-game winning streak as they prepare to finish their Pac-12 schedule at UCLA (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). USC is a half-game behind No. 10 Colorado, and a half-game ahead of Utah, in the Pac-12 South.The Trojans actually can win the division. If they beat the Bruins (4-6, 2-5), and if No. 22 Washington State wins at Colorado, and the Buffs go on to beat No. 12 Utah next week, then the courtly Helton would have every right to say something that is not his style.Google Clay Helton and you dont have to scroll down very far. The fifth story is, Clay Helton Must Be Fired and USC Needs to Find a Real Head Coach. The seventh and ninth stories provide five names as possible replacements. Those three stories were published in late September, when USC had a record of 1-3.The ready-fire-aim section of my business did itself proud. Yeah, the Trojans got humiliated by Alabama in the opener, 52-6. It turned out that USC, in its first game, literally was not ready for the big time. The atmosphere in Cowboys Stadium, not to mention the Crimson Tide themselves, overwhelmed the Trojans.Yep, they followed with an equally inept offensive performance at Stanford two weeks later in a 27-10 loss. After that game, Helton benched fourth-year junior quarterback Max Browne for redshirt freshman Sam Darnold.He played well in his first start, at Utah, but the Trojans lost fumbles on their first three offensive possessions, and then gave up a touchdown with :16 to play to lose 31-27. All they had to show for the first month of the season was a victory over Utah State and a rabble that had been roused.Gah, Helton said, that feels like years ago.His family rallied around him. In the days after the Utah game, his daughter Aubrey, a high school senior, came up to him, gave him a big hug, and said, Daddy, dont worry about it. Its all going to be good.Not even Aubrey knew how good. But her daddy had an inkling. As the carping about Helton being overmatched reached a crescendo, he came away from the Utah loss convinced that the Trojans would be fine. He wont tell you six-wins-in-a-row, 13th-ranked, division-contender fine. But fine. This wasnt a team pointing fingers across the locker room.There were guys coming up on their own to watch extra film in our meeting rooms and taking it upon themselves to bring their teammates with them, Helton said. Thats what hurt, losing that game, because I saw what each kid was trying to do to help this team win.Helton seized on that kernel of determination and, as the geniuses speculated on his successor -- four games into his career -- he let his team know that he paid it no mind.I kept telling myself, Remember, 18- to 21-year-olds look to their leader and look to their coaching staff, Helton said. How we react, theyre going to react. Just stay poised. Dont panic. Stay consistent in what youre doing and what you believe in and live with the results.Six starts later, Darnold is the best first-year quarterback in the FBS. Dont ask me, Jalen Hurts fans. Ask Darnolds QBR (86.8), fifth in the nation. Darnold has been so effective as a passer he has reopened the running lanes for backs Ronald Jones II and Justin Davis.That is as good a decision as any to probe whether Helton could coach his way out of a paper bag. With 20/20 hindsight, it seems perfectly obvious that Darnold is the better quarterback. But Helton remains steadfast that the full-speed decision he made to start Browne in the first three games is one he would make again.I had seen a kid, Max Browne, whos a redshirt junior, that had been in college football games, was efficient, had been a team captain, very respected by our team as a leader, Helton said. And I saw Sam, just this ultra-talented thing, just brilliance. But had never seen him in a ballgame, a real live college game.Browne didnt make mistakes, but he didnt make magic, either. Darnold proved he could handle major college football. Boy, could he. Should you blame Helton for not getting Darnold ready for the opener? You should, as long as you ignore that the offense had a new coordinator, the defense had a new coordinator, and so did the special teams. That contributed to the slow start as well.Look at the way the defense has improved over the course of the season: five sacks in the first four games, 14 in the next six. The Trojans have allowed an average of 18 points per game during their six-game winning streak.USC is coming off a 26-13 victory at No. 4 Washington, a vivid illustration of how far the Trojans have progressed since that loss to Alabama. Here was another fast, talented team. Here was a game in Husky Stadium, one of the most intimidating atmospheres in college football. USC didnt wilt this time.As I look back on our entire season, it really culminated in last week, Helton said. ...I just saw unbelievable poise and maturity. It was as electric an atmosphere as you could possibly have. It was as good a scene for college football as you could see, and the moment wasnt too big for them. They really walked in there with a sense of maturity and confidence. Hey, lets just focus on our job. Lets dont care about the stadium. Lets dont care about the noise. Lets dont care about the weather. Lets just get our job done.They have two rivalry games remaining -- Notre Dame comes west next week -- and Helton said he has seen no heads swelled by the win at Washington. Coach Overmatched could end up with a 10-win season. And a Pac-12 title. The guy that the internet fired seven weeks ago may end up in the Rose Bowl.Heltons unfailingly polite, unerringly even-keeled, unbelievably unexciting personality ended up being just the right touch for a young team. So, cmon, Coach. Let it go. Tell the experts off.You have to be very strong-willed, Helton said. You have to have thick skin. And dont get your feelings hurt. Believe in what youre doing. 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It was the second consecutive win for the Pacers (2-5), who lost their first five preseason games. Jeff Teague led the Hawks (1-5) with 17 points and eight assists and Al Horford had 12 points and seven rebounds. Mike Scott scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half. Nate Schmidt Jersey .H. -- Matt Kenseth made it 2 for 2 in the Chase, holding off teammate Kyle Busch to win Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. LOUDON, N.H. -- Jimmie Johnson felt as if Christmas came early. Martin Truex Jr. felt as if he earned a little bit of integrity.When NASCAR decided Wednesday not to penalize the drivers for their cars failing postrace inspection Sunday at Chicagoland, they obviously were pleased with being given a pass.Both faced 10-point penalties, with the penalty having a more immediate impact on Johnson because he finished 12th and would have dropped from eighth to 12th in the standings, affecting his ability to remain in the championship hunt. Truex won the race, and the penalty would have been meaningless unless he had already been eliminated from the championship.NASCAR officials said Wednesday that the penalty impact wasnt fair across the board, and it eliminated the rules that resulted in those penalties. Instead of having three levels of how much a cars rear alignment can be off, NASCAR has just one with a harsh penalty of 35 points, a three-race crew-chief suspension and a $65,000 fine. The 10-point and 15-point tiers are a thing of the past -- retroactively.The NASCAR decision wasnt universally applauded, especially for the retroactive portion. Ryan Newman had been penalized a few weeks earlier, making his prospects for getting into the Chase quite dim at Richmond. Other drivers felt it was unfair to those who passed postrace tech at Chicagoland for having to run under a different set of rules than that those NASCAR enforced.I dont know whats right. I dont know whats fair, Johnson said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. I was taking my lumps and going on with my business and then kind of Christmas showed up in September.It was unexpected, but happy they clearly saw the 78 and mine wasnt a fair situation.Truex felt a little different. He didnt feel relief as much as maybe getting a little bit of his good reputation back.It kind of taints your win, he said. You dont want people to think youre winning races by what they call cheating.But heres the deal. The car that led the most laps (Johnson) and the car that won the race (Truex) both were outside the NASCAR tolerances. Truex said his violation was ten-thousandths of an inch. Johnson said his was off by four-thousandths.People say, Their car was illegal, Truex said. That could mean a million things. It could have been something that was worth three-tenths of a second or it could be something that means absolutely nothing.In this case, it was absolutely nothing. But aa lot of people dont understand that.dddddddddddd.Actually, a lot of people even in the garage would dispute that. They work for every millisecond.Im sure directionally it was an advantage -- everybody will take a hundredth of a degree or a hundredth of an inch they can get, Johnson said. I think we were four-thousandths [of an inch] over.I dont know how much of an advantage you can get in four-thousandths. Thats awfully, awfully small, but were in a world now where its black and white.Truex said at Kansas earlier this year, he had the fastest car in practice but his car after practice was far outside the tolerance. The team fixed the issue and still won the pole.Everybody wants as much as they can get, but is ten-thousandths worth thousandths of a second? Truex said. I cant tell you. It depends on the race track and a lot of other things.One thing that will help perception, Truex said, is NASCARs putting all Chase cars through postrace measurement. It typically would take the top-five cars and any others at its choosing (which NASCAR calls the random, though it doesnt have to be picked randomly). Johnson was a random selection at Chicagoland.Sending all the Chase cars through is 100 percent the right thing to do, Truex said. The guy that finishes sixth doesnt even get checked, [and] he could have been off further than the guy who won the race.If were going nitpick like that, you need to put them all through there.Truexs team said his car failed because it was hit by Kevin Harvick during the race. After the race, Truex said he thought it was unintentional. Truex has talked with Harvick, and Harvick apparently thought Truex had hit him first.Well move on and well race like we always have -- very hard but always clean, Truex said. We agreed it was a racing deal, heat of the battle stuff.I was mad and I didnt know he was mad also. He thought I ran into him. Im not sure honestly. I dont really care at this point.All is good in Truexs world. And all is better in Johnsons world than it could have been.That is the last thing I expected to hear, Johnson said about the NASCAR decision. At the time after the race, I felt like the penalties that us and the 78 had just didnt feel fair.But I knew what the rules were, I knew we were out of the spec on the tolerances so I just took it for what it was. Wholesale NFL Womens Jerseys China Womens NFL Jerseys Nike NFL Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys Outlet Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale Wholesale NFL White Jerseys Discount Jerseys ' ' '