Eric Bieniemy denies USC rumors for good reason

Eric Bieniemy continues to be tied to the USC head coach job, but he denied the rumors recently.

Clay Helton was fired by the Trojans on Monday, two days after his team got embarrassed in a home loss to Stanford. Donte Williams was named USC’s interim head coach and won his first game, a 45-14 comeback over Utah.

Immediately after Helton’s firing, we put together a list of potential replacements. Bieniemy’s name came up quickly via a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter. A second report on Sunday linked Bieniemy to the job, saying he has interest in it.

But apparently Bieniemy had a different message for NBC.

During the third quarter of Sunday night’s Kansas City Chiefs-Baltimore Ravens game, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth were talking about Bieniemy and praising him as an offensive coordinator. Michaels then brought up the Bieniemy-USC rumors.

“He said, ‘I don’t know where that came from,'” Michaels recalled.

He said ‘the AD at USC is the guy who fired me at Colorado!'” Collinsworth said of Bieniemy.

Bieniemy was a star running back at Colorado. He had two coaching stints there, including one from 2011-2012 as their offensive coordinator. The team went 4-21 under Jon Embree in those two seasons. Mike Bohn was the athletic director at Colorado from 2005-2013 and fired the entire staff under Embree. Bohn is now the athletic director at USC and a big part of the hiring process for a new head coach.

Maybe that is working against Bieniemy, but a lot has changed since then. Bieniemy has been with the Chiefs since Andy Reid became the head coach in 2013. Bieniemy has developed into a successful offensive coordinator and has been a candidate for numerous head coach jobs. He even was offered the Colorado job but turned it down. Now he reportedly has interest in the USC job, though he denies it.