USC football: Who is new interim coach Donte Williams?

With Clay Helton out as the USC football head coach, Donte Williams will serve in the interim.

Shockwaves emanate out of Los Angeles today, as the USC football program actually parted ways with head coach Clay Helton and cornerbacks coach Donte Williams serving as the interim the rest of the way.

It was really only a matter of time before USC athletic director Mike Bohn had enough of Helton. After seeing USC get throughly embarrassed last week vs. a bad Stanford team, Bohn pulled the plug on the Helton era. So with Williams taking over in the interim, what should we know about the new, temporary face of USC football? Here is a bit of what Williams will be bring to the table.

From the looks of it, it is all about Williams’ recruiting chops and holding him over on the new staff.

USC football fires Clay Helton: Who is interim head coach Donte Williams?

Williams is 38-years-old and has 14 years of coaching experience. The Culver City native played his college ball for Idaho State before getting into coaching. Since 2010, he has worked for Division I programs such as Nevada, Washington, San Jose State, Arizona, Nebraska and Oregon prior to joining the USC staff in 2020 as cornerbacks coach and the defensive passing game coordinator.

While at Washington, he coached the likes of Desmond Trufant and Marcus Peters for the Huskies. His cousins Kris Richard and Darnell Lacy played their college ball for the Trojans, with the former having been most notably the defensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks and defensive passing game coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. Clearly, Williams has strong legacy ties to USC.

Though he will not get the full-time gig, what a big opportunity for Williams to take advantage of.

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