Just five days after USC fired football coach Clay Helton Sept. 13, Notre Dame's Brian Kelly tied Knute Rockne as the program’s all-time leader in wins with a victory over Purdue. Then Kelly alluded to the state of USC’s program in comparison to that of his own in the postgame press conference.
“They’ve had a number of different head coaches at their university,” Kelly said. “You know I’m talking about our rival on the West Coast. And this is not to smear them at all, I’m just saying it requires consistency to get to these points. We have it with our leadership.”
Kelly is set to face the fifth different head coach, including interims, USC has had since he arrived in South Bend in 2010. This is the third time the Trojans started the season with one coach but will go into its game against Notre Dame with another since Kelly has been at the helm.
Kelly and the Irish faced Lane Kiffin three times from 2010-12. The Irish beat interim leader Ed Orgeron in 2013 and Helton when he was still the interim coach in 2015. Those victories were sandwiched around a loss to Steve Sarkisian in his one year in charge of the Trojans program in 2014.
Donte Williams, formerly USC’s defensive passing game coordinator and cornerbacks coach, will lead the Trojans into this year’s matchup as the interim head coach.
Notre Dame is searching for a fourth consecutive win in the series, and it would be the first time the Irish have beaten the Trojans four times in a row since the Lou Holtz era. Notre Dame went 12-0-1 against USC from 1983-95. The Irish only changed coaches once during that span, from Gerry Faust to Holtz in 1986. USC changed coaches twice, from Ted Tollner to Larry Smith in 1987 and Smith to John Robinson in 1993.
The Trojans’ longest stint of success in the series was when they won eight games in a row from 2002-09. Pete Carroll was the USC head coach for all of those seasons while Notre Dame had to switch from Tyrone Willingham to Charlie Weis in the middle of that run.
That just goes to show that Kelly is correct; stability among a program’s coaching staff generally leads to overall success and a better likelihood of taking care of annual rivalry games. We'll see if it plays out that way Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium when the No. 13 Irish (5-1) host the Trojans (3-3) at 7:30 p.m. ET (NBC).
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