Ryan Kartje (LA Times)  —  Beautiful Eagle Creek sits just off Tillman Road in Statesboro, Ga., tracing the edge of the practice field at Georgia Southern University, where for more than four decades, the creek has been considered holy ground.

But to call Beautiful Eagle Creek a creek at all is, well … a stretch. It’s really a drainage ditch. Its water usually sits stagnant, attracting swarms of gnats to the field during the more humid months of the year. When Erk Russell arrived in Statesboro in 1981 to resurrect the football program, he gave it the name and declared its muddy water “magical” to inspire the team. The story stuck. And Beautiful Eagle Creek became a central part of the program’s mythos. During every road trip, Russell would bring along a jug full of its brown water with him to sprinkle on the opponent’s field. To this day, at the start of every new season in Statesboro, any new players or coaches are “baptized” in its magical waters.

New Georgia Southern football players stand in Beautiful Eagle Creek (drainage ditch maybe?), continuing a tradition of baptizing newcomers in its muddy water. (AJ Henderson / Georgia Southern)

Three years ago, Clay Helton stood knee deep in that creek for his baptism, eager to start anew. He came to Georgia Southern after a dozen seasons at USC, where he started first as quarterbacks coach, then offensive coordinator and finally the head coach. During six seasons leading the Trojans, he brought a sense of stability back to the USC football program after a decade of dysfunction. He even led the Trojans to a Rose Bowl win (in 2016) and Pac-12 title (in 2017) in the process, something no other USC coach has done since Pete Carroll.

But recruiting slowed, discipline slipped and the program hit a wall. USC went 18-13 from 2018-20. Fans by and large blamed Helton. Then, two games into the 2021 season, the school fired him.

Clay Helton stands on the sideline while losing badly to Stanford at the Coliseum on Sep. 11, 2021. He never coached another game for USC. (Luis Sinco / LAT)

At the time, he felt lost. His kids had grown up wearing cardinal and gold. So what now? What was he without a team to coach? “I looked at [my wife] Angela,” Helton said, “Like, gosh almighty, ‘I’m miserable.’”

The call from Georgia Southern, in retrospect, felt like divine intervention. It came six weeks after USC cut him loose, just as it became clear he couldn’t possibly step away from football.

The following fall, Helton stood on the banks of Beautiful Eagle Creek, gnats swirling overhead, wondering if maybe its water really was magic after all.

“As God closes one door, he opened another for me,” Helton said. “And a door that’s been really good for me at Georgia Southern.”

Helton will return to the Coliseum on Saturday to lead his new team, Georgia Southern, against his old one, USC, in a reunion that, under different circumstances, could have been uncomfortable for all involved.

How USC fans might receive him remains to be seen. But for Helton, there were never any hard feelings. Quite the opposite, in fact.

For Lincoln Riley, the coach who replaced him at USC, Helton has been a sounding board whenever they’ve crossed paths. During past three years, they’ve played in the same charity golf tournament at Pebble Beach, and Riley said he has “cherished” that time with his predecessor.

“Those have been conversations I’ve appreciated,” Riley said. “You see the kind of human being he is. It’s pretty special.”

Helton has followed Riley’s tenure closely. Asked how he might feel upon returning to the Coliseum, the Trojans former coach told The Times that he felt only “immense gratitude that [he] even got that opportunity” at USC.

“To have the opportunity to coach the Adoree Jacksons of the world, the Sam Darnolds of the world, the Amon-ra St Browns and Drake Londons and JuJu Smith-Schusters, that doesn’t happen,” Helton said. “That’s not a got-to, that’s a get-to. There were successes. There were failures, and that happens over 12 years. But the gratitude I had just to be a part of it, that was what’s hit me the most.”

“That’ll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” Helton said.

Georgia Southern coach Clay Helton and long snapper Jackson Wheeler celebrate vs Marshall on Nov. 11, 2023, in Huntington, W.Va. (Kathleen Batten / AP)

He also knew when he took the job that changes were needed. The football players, for one, didn’t have hot water for their showers. But other infrastructure needed updates, too. He implored the school to hire a nutritionist for the football team. He also more than doubled the size of the strength and training staffs.

“We may not be able to do as much as a USC,” Helton said, “but when we do it, our players feel it.”

Under Russell, Georgia Southern won four Football Championship Series national titles in six years from 1985-90. But the school’s last national title was a quarter century ago. The Eagles still ran the same option offense that Russell first installed.

So Helton brought the pro-style offense to Statesboro. It was, for some, a culture shock.

“It’s hard when you do that, especially for your fan base, to be able to be like, ‘OK, let’s welcome this,’” Helton said. “Some of them have grown up on the option. So you needed to have some success in Year 1.”

Helton took the Eagles to bowl games in each of his two seasons after that. And in February, the school offered him a contract extension through 2029. It looks, for now at least, like Helton will stay at Georgia Southern for the long haul.

He’s thrilled about that.

“Statesboro has felt like home ever since I set foot at the university,” Helton said. “We’ve built a home, Angela and I have. … Hopefully they’ll let us stay for a long time. And if we can have a run like we did at USC and we can have a decade or more, that would make me really happy.”

Helton planned to bring his Georgia Southern players to the Coliseum on Friday to get the shock and awe out of the way early. Some of them had never even flown on a plane before the team’s trip to California. He’s most excited, he says, to see their faces as they run out of the tunnel.

Clay Helton runs onto the field for the last time with his Trojans before facing Stanford at the Coliseum on Sep. 11, 2021. (Luis Sinco / LAT)

He knows he’ll feel nostalgic, too, when the time comes to run out of the tunnel Saturday.

“USC was special to me,” he said. “It was a place that changed my life.”

But this time, as Helton takes the field, he’ll bring something new along with him, something that had never set foot in the Coliseum before.

A jug of that magical water, from Beautiful Eagle Creek.

latimes.com