Don Clark

Head coach, USC, 1957 to 1959

College career13-16-1

Program liftNo. 978tied · of 1,290 tenures since 1937

Now

Career arc

Stats

Big games

The big-game ledger

How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.

0-5 against his rivals. Just 1-2 against Pete Elliott.

Rivalry record

0-5-1

0.0% · 2 rivals

One-score games

5-7-1

38.5% · margin ≤8

Against Blue Bloods or better

1-3

25.0%

Rivalry ledger

UCLA0-2-10%

Notre Dame0-30%

The toughest matchup

vs. Pete Elliott1-2

3 meetings, 1957–1959

’57 L’58 L’59 W

33% win rate across a real, 3-meeting series — short of the bar this site uses before badging a series “Nemesis.” Shown here as the toughest matchup on record, not an algorithmic crown.

Performance by opponent class

Blue Blood

1-3 25.0%

Power Program

0-4 0.0%

National Program

9-7 56.2%

Regional Program

3-2 60.0%

Building the roster

Two numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.

1Roster ownership
2The NFL pipeline

Roster ownership

This coach's entire tenure (1957-1959) predates 2021, when transfer-portal tracking begins in this database. Portal usage cannot be measured for this tenure at all -- this is not the same as '0% portal'.

“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.

The NFL pipeline

at least5Drafted

players drafted into the NFL off his teams here (a floor — see the note below). None can be traced to who brought them in — there’s no roster record for these players here. 1 went in the first round.

At least 5 — his 1957, 1958, 1959 seasons predate the modern 7-round draft, so this table’s pre-1994 pick counts are a floor, not a full count, for those seasons.

0 roster-verified · 5 estimated

Most recent picks first

Year	Pick	Note
1960	R1.10	Estimated
1960	R6.64	Estimated
1960	R7.73	Estimated
1959	R4.39	Estimated
1958	R6.68	Estimated

A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.