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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 21, 2017

Clay Helton

South Bend, Indiana

Notre Dame - 49, USC - 14

CLAY HELTON: Good win for Notre Dame. Credit their football team and their coaching staff for the job they did. They came out and executed I thought a flawless game plan. Started with their run game. They were extremely physical tonight.

We'll watch this tape. Obviously there are several corrections we have to make before we get back to Arizona State and Pac-12 play.

Got a sad football team in there right now. We'll live and learn from this. There's a lot of football left to be played. Great opportunity to move on to Arizona State, try to fix some of the stuff that happened tonight.

Injury-wise, Iman Marshall left the game with a knee injury. Chuma Edoga left the game with an ankle. Michael Pittman left the game with an ankle. Andrew Vorhees left the game with a lower back injury. We'll see where we are on Tuesday.

With that, I'll take any questions that you have.

Q. Anything jump out with the run defense?
CLAY HELTON: I'm going to have to go back and look at the tape first. But obviously it looked like there were some gap control issues the way it spit out of the middle a little bit. We'll see off the film when we get back.

Q. Offensively, the turnovers, why do you think those issues have persisted throughout the year?
CLAY HELTON: It's been a little bit of everything. We have a muffed punt that leads to a turnover. All of a sudden first snap is a little high and hot. It leads to a turnover. We have an interception. When you have three of those against a really good Notre Dame football team, you're going to put yourself in a hole, and that's what happened.

They're an extremely good offense. They showed it on tape. I was extremely impressed the way they played tonight.

Q. Was anything much different tonight other than Notre Dame was better?
CLAY HELTON: I thought Notre Dame was really well prepared. I thought they played an excellent game. We helped them by mistakes. I think we're going to get back and look at the tape and it's going to be all the way around. It's going to be, like I said in there, pretty much be all of us I think when we look at it. The kids understand that. They appreciate the truth. We'll look at the tape, make the corrections and move on.

Q. (Question regarding the line of scrimmage.)
CLAY HELTON: I knew they were very physical up front, especially their offensive line. This was the most experienced offensive line that we faced. Going into the season they had four kids that played 18 games or more. Knew that the two runners, both Josh and Wimbush, were ultra-dangerous. To see them live, they're a terrific combination.

They got us today. They did a terrific job. Credit to them and their staff, their players. They played a heck of a game.

Q. Before the season, everyone talked about the College Football Playoffs. Now how do you deal with that disappointment?
CLAY HELTON: You deal with the realism of where we're at. We're a 6-2 football team that lead the Pac-12 South and has the opportunity to play another game and remain in first place in the Pac-12 South. That's what we're going to do.

We play them one game at a time, whether it's a positive game or a negative game. We try to fix the corrections and go and move on. There's still a lot to play for in this season. There's not only the Pac-12 South championship but a Pac-12 championship. We control our own destiny in that area.

You worry about the things that you can control, and right now it's fixing the mistakes of a football team tonight and moving on to Arizona State.

Q. What happened to Sam?
CLAY HELTON: He's been dealing with an ankle injury since Washington State, playing through it. Tonight just tweaked it a little bit. Once we got to the fourth quarter, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get Matt in. Don't risk any further injury, get Matt some good experience. I thought the kid went in there and did a nice job for us.

Q. (Question regarding whether or not the ankle affected Sam's play.)
CLAY HELTON: We all have bumps and bruises. Sam will tell you, you know, he's one of those kids that's a gamer, will play through a lot of things. Tonight he got rolled up on and tweaked it.

It was my call. He would have loved to have stayed in the full game. That situation, being in the fourth quarter, being down like we were, I didn't want to risk. Plus I needed to get some experience in a young quarterback.

Q. What do you think you need to do to get better prepared for a physical team like tonight?
CLAY HELTON: I think right now we need to go back and watch this tape and see where the assignments were. I think any time you have some longer runs that spit out like they did, we're going to see a couple gap control issues, as well as men playing in our back field on the offensive line, too.

Credit Notre Dame. They won the battle in the trenches tonight. We'll have another opportunity to get better and try to win the battle next week.

Q. (Question regarding Sam's season.)
CLAY HELTON: He's a kid that in my opinion will do anything for his team. I've said this before, said it prior to this game, and still believe it: we're a successful team because of Sam Darnold.

Sam gives us the best opportunity to win a Pac-12 championship, and I thank God every day he's on this football team. He believes in team success over individual success. He's hurting in there right now because his team didn't win. That's what I love about him.

He'll come back off this game, and I promise you he'll be ready for Arizona State. He'll try to put his best foot forward once again to help his team.

Have safe travels back, see you at home.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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