USC’s Helton takes memories of time in Hawaii into Rose Bowl

LOS ANGELES >> Nearly a decade after coaching his last game for Hawaii, June Jones will see his influence on the Rainbow Warriors extend across the Pacific to the grandfather of all college bowl games.

USC assistant Tyson Helton, who started his coaching career under Jones, will be responsible for the Trojans’ passing attack when they play in the Rose Bowl against Penn State in Pasadena, Calif., on Monday.

Helton, the younger brother of USC head coach Clay Helton, is finishing his first season as the quarterbacks’ coach and the coordinator for the passing game. The assistant joined the Trojans from Western Kentucky, where he spent the previous two seasons turning the Hilltoppers’ offense into a record-breaking machine.

As a result, the 39-year-old Helton became one of four finalists for FootballScoop.com’s 2015 award as its offensive coordinator of the year.

USC quarterback Sam Darnold benefited from Helton’s guidance. A redshirt freshman, Darnold replaced Max Browne as the starter after three games and led the Trojans to an 8-1 record while throwing 26 touchdown passes, the most by a freshman in school history. Darnold finished the season as the Pacific-12 Conference’s freshman offensive player of the year.

“Probably the area where he’s most helped me is understanding schemes, understanding defenses, what they’re trying to do every single play,” Darnold said of Helton. “He’s a great coach.”

Helton’s connection with Jones began as a 10-year old in his hometown, Houston. Helton’s father, Kim, coached the Houston Oilers’ offensive line while Jones worked with the quarterbacks under head coach Jerry Glanville.

“I got to know Coach June real well,” the younger Helton said, “and he always knew I wanted to be a coach.”

Once Helton completed his playing career as a quarterback at the University of Houston, where his father was the head coach, a job as a graduate assistant at UH under Jones became available.

“I was lucky I was able to fill it,” Helton said. “I got to stay out there for four years, got married and it was like a four-year honeymoon. So it was pretty cool.”

Helton began working with the special teams as a graduate assistant in 2000, then became UH’s full-time special teams coach in 2001. That season, the Warriors broke the NCAA single-season record for kickoff-return yardage. Chad Owens also established two NCAA records with 342 overall return yards, 248 of them on kickoffs, against Brigham Young on Dec. 8, 2001.

As Helton guided the special teams, he observed Jones in action.

“He was a players’ coach,” Helton said. “He knew what the important things were and he didn’t let the little things become big. The guys always played extremely hard for him because they all knew Coach June had their backs. He’s just a great man, a good, humble guy. Very competitive, though, once the game started. The players loved that. The players knew he was going to do whatever it took to win the game. That’s why they played so hard for him.”

The Warriors under Jones became known for their dynamic passing attack, the run-and-shoot, which forged Helton’s offensive approach.

“We were slinging it all over the park,” said Helton, who benefited from “all the route concepts that you learn, how to attack coverages and all those things,” he added. “It was a great starting point for me.”

Helton left UH in 2004 to coach the tight ends and special teams at Memphis for three years. But the turning point of his career came at Alabama-Birmingham, where he coached from 2007 to 2012.

“It was a tough job because we didn’t have great facilities,” Helton said. “We weren’t really talented, but you had to learn as coaches how to do without, basically. You had to be creative. Nothing came easy, but we had great people. I learned so much there about how to be a coach, how to take advantage of weaknesses, because if you don’t, you didn’t have the players to just make plays.”

Helton moved to the University of Cincinnati in 2013 before becoming Western Kentucky’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach the next season. At WKU, Helton found a kindred spirit in head coach Jeff Brohm.

“Our philosophies were the same offensively,” Helton said. “We were together for one year at UAB, so he and I got to know each other real well there. It was the perfect combination.”

That combination enabled WKU’s Brandon Doughty to become one of the country’s best college quarterbacks. In 2014, Doughty passed for 4,830 yards and 49 touchdowns, both national highs. Then in 2015, Doughty led the NCAA with 5,055 passing yards, 48 touchdowns and a 71.9 percent completion rate, finished second with a 176.5 efficiency rating and became Conference USA’s most valuable player for the second consecutive season.

As a team, the Hilltoppers broke more than two dozen school records during Helton’s two seasons. WKU finished first nationally in passing efficiency in 2015 while ranking third in scoring, fourth in passing yardage, eighth in first downs and ninth in total yardage.

Tee Martin, USC’s offensive coordinator and the quarterback of Tennessee’s 1998 national champions, bears witness to Helton’s creativity.

“We do a good job of having him come up with something that may be off the wall,” Martin said. “We’ll look at it and say, ‘That’s a great idea. Now let’s bring it down to where it makes sense for the players.’ To have the guts to actually put that concept together and trust the fact that it will work, he’s been spectacular in that role. Just a bright mind.”