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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 8, 2018

Clay Helton

Stanford, California

Stanford - 17

USC - 3

CLAY HELTON: Very proud of our kids and how they played tonight. I thought they competed like warriors. I know it's not the outcome that we hoped for, but was very enthusiastic about how they fought to the bitter end. Obviously there's some mistakes that we will clean up over the next week, this is an early game in the season against a Top-10 team and all our hopes and aspirations and dreams are still out there and our team understands that. They were great in the locker room and they're ready to move forward and to continue to work and get better. Injury wise, Isaiah Pola-Mao had a shoulder dislocation in the game. And JT had a hand bruise, had a bruise of his hand we X-rayed it, that's why he came out for the series. The X-rays were negative. Felt good enough to throw the ball and wanted to compete and went out there and I thought he competed like a warrior. So obviously our job as coaches is to get at each and every member of our team better. Every experience is a learning experience and some are good and some are not so good and we'll learn from the experience and move on. With that we'll take any questions that you have.

Q. Did Stanford's defense surprise you in any way in this game?
CLAY HELTON: No, we have been facing each other now, this is my ninth year, this is our third time in the last year competing against each other. We have a lot of respect for that team and how they played, I thought they really played well in the back end tonight. We tried to get some explosive plays and they were making us go the long way. We never felt like we could get the field flipped during the game. They did a great job of playing clean football, didn't see turnovers by them, didn't see a ton of penalties and I think our defense did a great very good job of holding up and giving us an opportunity to stay in the game through the entirety of the game.

Q. What did you learn from tonight?
CLAY HELTON: I would say if this is a learning experience is obviously that I think one, the quarterback is going to learn from the good times and the bad and every rep that he gets he's going to get better from it. And every rep that we get as a staff we're going to learn how to be able to work around him and the offense we have got three really good backs right now that I think can run the ball effectively. We got some damn good wide outs that I thought made some plays and we'll keep it, we'll keep it to where the quarterback can function, I know we will. He's a very smart person and a very talented person and will grow and will grow from tonight.

Q. You know Coach Shaw likes the running game. With Costello coming on the way he is does it even make them more dangerous with the way they balance the offense now?
CLAY HELTON: Yes they did a nice job hitting some third downs, especially the one third and long he hit down the middle to the tight end, that was just an unbelievable throw. A great two ball over the interior linebacker. But it makes him a more balanced offense. I was proud of our back end, we came in saying that we couldn't let J.J. have the type of night that he had in the first game. I thought Clancy put a terrific plan together for that. And credit the defensive front for holding up against the run game. There's a lot of cloud situations out there trying to stop those passing situations and guys had to hold up in two high some. And we did. So I thought defensively it was a really, really good well played game.

Q. Is there a reason why we didn't see more of Stephen Carr and Amon-Ra St. Brown?
CLAY HELTON: You saw Stephen work, we worked just like we did the first game, mixing in all three tail backs effectively. Stephen I thought did a really nice job tonight. Amon-Ra, actually, we actually had a special package for Amon-Ra tonight, the ocho package that we put in where, not only is he playing outside receiver but slot receiver now. So we're trying to do everything possible to get it in our playmakers' hands and Stephen and Amon-Ra are two of our better playmakers and we'll continue to try to find ways to get them the ball.

Q. What has to change for your guys to finish the big drives that you had tonight to get points in enemy territory?
CLAY HELTON: We had a long field the majority of the night. We got it down there. We missed some opportunities to be able to hit some one-on-ones. Some of it was protection, some of them we didn't get to the correct side in the passing game. It was a variety of things. I look forward to watching the tape and seeing more, but obviously we have to be able to push it in and get better in back-to-back games.

Q. How much credit do you give Stanford for the way they played?
CLAY HELTON: A lot. Coach Shaw's team is a very well-coached team and we have always known that. We have been up against them three times in the last year and we have had the good fortunate of winning two and losing tonight in a hard fought battle contest. And a lot of our guys patted me on the back and said, coach, just know this, there's a good chance we may see them again down the road. And if you think about it, two out of the last three years we have met each other again in December. And that team is a team of honor, they're a team of well coached football players.

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