The East Carolina Pirates are in the market for a new football coach and Clay Helton, the former head man at USC and current Georgia Southern coach, may be in the running.

FootballScoop reported a slew of names linked to the position, which it called “maybe the best job thus far to open up.”

ECU fired Mike Houston after seven games this season. Blake Harrell will finish out the year as interim head coach. The Pirates are 3-0 so far under his leadership.

Helton is currently in his third season at the helm of Georgia Southern and he has the Eagles sitting at 6-4 and in the driver's seat for a bowl bid for a third-straight year. Since coming to Statesboro, Helton is 18-18 overall, but he is in the midst of his best Sun Belt season to date. Georgia Southern is 4-2 in the league with two games remaining, putting them within striking distance of a Sun Belt title game appearance.

Prior to Georgia Southern, Helton spent parts of eight seasons at USC, compiling a 46-24 overall record with a 2016 Rose Bowl win and 2017 Pac-12 championship to his name. Despite going 5-1 with the Trojans in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, USC fired Helton after two games the next season. That Trojan team finished the season 4-8 before the program hired Lincoln Riley the next year.

Helton first joined the USC program in 2010 as quarterbacks coach under Lane Kiffin.

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Former USC football coach Clay Helton is just one candidate for the East Carolina head coach job

East Carolina Pirates head coach Mike Houston looks on during the second half against the Army Black Knights at Michie Stadium.
Lucas Boland-Imagn Images

The ECU administration is scouring the college football landscape as it searches for its next football coach. FootballScoop reported that Clay may not even be the most likely Helton to land the job. The Georgia Southern coach's brother, Tyson, currently leads the Western Kentucky program, with FootballScoop saying he “has been considered to be much more deeply involved.”

Outside of the Helton family, the Pirates are reportedly considering Garrett Riley and Joe Sloan, offensive coordinators at Clemson and LSU respectively. East Carolina was Riley's first Division I coaching job. He was a graduate assistant in Greenville from 2013 to 2014, then the outside wide receivers coach in 2015. Sloan was a four-year member of the ECU football team as a backup quarterback from 2005 to 2008.

FootballScoop also suggested Skip Holtz as a name linked to the job. Holtz currently leads the Birmingham Stallions of the United Football League and was head coach at East Carolina from 2005 to 2009. His most recent college job came at Louisiana Tech, where he led the Bulldogs for nine seasons, bringing the team to seven consecutive bowl games.