It has been a remarkable month here at Trojans Wire. A coach firing, a coaching search, a quarterback controversy and the relitigation of the Clay Helton era have created an emotional roller coaster for the USC community and its football fan base. It is worth reflecting on the emotions of the past month and the past two weeks since Helton got fired on Sept. 13.

You know by now that The Athletic produced and reported a long-form piece on the Helton era at USC. One of the co-authors of that report is a national figure, college football insider Bruce Feldman. The other co-author is Antonio Morales, a USC beat reporter close to the program with a local perspective on the Trojans.

In the days since that report came out on Thursday, my Twitter mentions and responses have consistently driven home a few basic points that are important for those outside the USC program to absorb:

1. USC fans were against Helton many years ago. They didn’t hide their opinions, either.
2. Local media in Los Angeles, which, like the fan base, expects USC to be a consistently elite program, has done well in covering the team and not ignoring the program’s obvious and severe flaws.
3. USC fans kept tabs on which national media personalities were willing to call a spade a spade with Helton in 2018 and 2019 (when he should have been fired), and which ones kept silent until now, when he was fired, and it became easier to tell the story of how his USC tenure collapsed.

One of the national media figures who generally kept silent was, in fact, Feldman. Yes, that long-form piece co-authored with Morales was good and interesting. The quotes were juicy and the details were noteworthy. It was good journalism. It was the kind of piece that educates readers yet creates a buzz among fans and observers, moving the needle without being clickbaity. It was a story that caught people’s attention because it was substantive and contained real news value. It is exactly what we see too little of in journalism these days.

The question USC fans asked me and, I can guarantee you, Feldman over the past 72 hours: “Why now? Why wasn’t this story written two years ago?”

It’s a more than fair point.

It’s not as though Feldman or Joel Klatt or other national voices in college football reporting and commentary were errant in their recent comments or analyses on the downfall of Helton and why his tenure fell short of expectations at USC. They weren’t wrong in what they said or wrote.

The problem is how tardy they were in arriving at the same (public) conclusion USC fans reached years ago. Why were they so behind the curve? Did they honestly have a wait-and-see view of the situation? Maybe, but they’re supposed to be the experts. They’re supposed to see things sooner rather than later. If they didn’t broadcast or write strong criticisms of Helton in the past, why?

Did they view USC fans as somehow spoiled, as though a 5-7 season in 2018 should have been shrugged off as a bad year and not a permanent verdict on Helton? What about 2019, which ended with a decisive loss in the Holiday Bowl? That’s not remotely acceptable at USC, but somehow Trojan fans were left alone on an island in their severe criticisms of Helton. To a considerable extent, much of the national media — not all of it, but certainly enough to notice — pulled its punches. Only when Helton met the end of the road did it seem somehow “safe” for Feldman to parachute in with a line of analysis USC fans had long — and correctly — held.

It is curious, no?

Everything we have seen with USC fans in recent years on the matter of  Helton has also been evident on the topic of Sam Darnold. USC fans pleaded for Darnold to be given a proper NFL home: not the New York Jets, not Adam Gase. Get him out of those two career traps, USC fans insisted. Then you’ll see the real Darnold.

A lot of NFL media figures viewed that idea with skepticism. You can find plenty of national commentators who pointed out the throws Darnold didn’t make with the Jets or the open receivers he didn’t see, as though horrible coaching within a terrible organization has little to no bearing on how a quarterback sees the field, processes the game and creates a confident mindset.

For plenty (not all, but again, enough to notice) national NFL analysts, Darnold was a lost cause, a sinking ship. The Panthers weren’t going to revive his career, they said. He was damaged goods.

Matt Rhule and Joe Brady aren’t Gase. They know what they’re doing. Darnold might not have a Hall of Fame career or win Super Bowls, but he certainly looks like a guy who can win 10 games per year with decent talent in a healthy environment with sound coaching and a good culture.

That’s not a bust. That’s not a lost cause.

USC fans were right about Helton in 2018. They were right about Darnold all along. I realize it’s easy to think fans are the most unreasonable people in the room. Sometimes that’s true.

A Los Angeles Dodger fan on Twitter said the other day that Max Muncy needed to be traded. Muncy has been the best, most consistent Dodger hitter all year.

He then hit a two-run home run to beat the Colorado Rockies in extra innings, roughly one hour after the Dodger fan tweeted he should be traded. Yes, fans can be irrational.

Yet, on both Helton and Darnold, all USC fans were guilty of was having high standards — for USC and for the New York Jets. They could see both operations were incompetently managed to the detriment of their beloved program and the beloved quarterback who pulled off the remarkable feat of transcending Helton’s bad coaching for two seasons.

The national media somehow couldn’t see what USC fans correctly saw and accurately perceived all along.

Maybe national pundits in both college football and the NFL will give USC fans a little more respect in the near future.