You Know What’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
USC football Czar Pete Carroll leaving La-La land for the Emerald City.
Arguably the most successful college coach of the last decade, the USC dynamo is reportedly going to be the new head coach of the Seattle Seahawks.
Why would he walk away from USC? USC is the gold standard of College Football. Pete Carroll walking away from the premier college coaching job is like Tiger Woods walking away from his Swiss Trophy Wife because she doesn’t fill out a bikini well enough. That’s like trading in your Ferrari because there’s not enough trunk space. When is enough not enough?
Carroll is paid millions and millions of dollars. He makes more than any private university employee in the nation. There is no NFL team in L.A. so he is all ready revered as a football God in America’s 2nd largest city which craves football. He is on billboards and the poster child for grid iron greatness in the Southland. He is a great college recruiter, who has put in place an assembly line of five star talent who wants to come play for him. He is the rare coach that can recruit in any neighborhood in the nation, and that includes Tuscaloosa and Gainesville. He is telegenic and charismatic in a city where movie star good looks and success are celebrated.
Carroll just had his first “down” year in a decade. The Trojans won the Emerald Bowl convincingly over Boston College to end the season. The tone seemed to be set for next year. The pieces were seeminly in place for another championship run. The Trojans ended up 9-4. Most teams call that a success. At USC it was treated as if it were 4-9.
Perhaps it is this kind of expectation that is pushing Carroll out the door.
What? You don’t think there is going to be “expectations” in Seattle Petey? Hold onto your ass boy, because NFL pressure is a frying pan that sizzles talented coaches like yourself.
So why go to the Seahawks?
More money? How much money do you really need? More control? Who had more control than USC’s Pete Carroll? More prestige? See “God of L.A.” paragraph above.
Maybe P.C has something to prove in the NFL where his previous record is a smidge over mediocre?
Petey boy is a rah rah kind of coach. His personality is infectious, and it attracts recruits and their parents. But his loose practices are also a point of contention. I always felt his team is too lax when it comes to discipline. He motivates with enthusiasm and boyish charm and open competition that makes freshman think they can start. All of this works when your players are 19 and 20 year old kids. I don’t think this act plays in the NFL. It’s a business and the players are multi millionaires. Will they respond to a cheer leader? or a task master?
ESPN.com reports that: On Friday, Jim Mora became the first Seahawks coach to be let go after one season, when the team finished 5-11. Personally I think they should have given Mora another year to right the ship. Mora is a high energy rah rah type coach as well.
TJ Houshmanzadah said that Mora had the respect of all the players in the locker room. So maybe Pete Carroll’s enthusiasm will be well received in Seattle, but then again, maybe it will be more of the same.
Many College coaches have tried to jump to the NFL with only limited success. Ask Steve Spurrier how well that worked? How bout Nick Saban or Butch Davis or Bobby Petrino? They all limped into sub 500 pro records and then were either fired or stepped down unceremoniously.
Many of these guys end up coaching again in college. So if Carroll fails in Seattle and returns to college, he’ll have dozens of schools recruiting him, but will any of them be USC? Will he have left the possibility of becoming a legend on the same level as Paterno and Bear Bryant?
When Kentucky basketball coach Rick Pitino won a national title, he tried to recreate that in the NBA. He had limited success, but nothing like the success he had at Kentucky, where he had established a recruiting juggernaut, a factory of sorts, much like USC is today. Can coaches not learn from their brethern? Do they not talk to each other? Someone should have texted coach to say “stay put”. But when your a God, you don’t take phone calls and read advice.
Some say Carroll is leaving because he wants a new challenge. I think he’s leaving because the USC program is in deep doo-doo. I am starting to think the house is on fire at USC and he is getting out before he gets burned. I am afraid that NCAA sanctions are simmering under the surface. Questions of academic ineligibility and illegal gifts and special treatment is swirling in the wind around Heritage Hall. It seems that a university with a good football program has become a football factory where school is an after thought. Players are coming to USC simply to go to the NFL. Recruits in alarming numbers are jumping ship after two years. Gone are the days when Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush came back for their senior years because; are you ready for this :COLLEGE IS FUN!! Now players want to get paid. Who came blame them. I read a quote recently that simply said; “if you don’t have to play football for free you should never play football for free.”
I sense a foul stench in the air at USC and it most probably is the reason Pete Carroll’s packing up his Ferrari with the small trunk and driving north. It’s as if someone put a bucket of gas in the oven and set the temperature to low. Eventually there will be a combustible moment and I believe Pete Caroll is the cook in this kitchen of explosive times to come.
Rome was a dynasty and then it crumbled under it’s own corruptive force. USC may be the modern day Rome of College Football.
Nero fiddled while his empire burned. Carroll is getting out before anyone sees the flames, though some of us all ready see the smoke. By the time the blaze erupts, a richer Pete Carroll will be playing a new fiddle, in the Emerald City. It will be years before anyone has the audacity to look behind the curtain and see who the wizard really is.
Battle lines are drawn, only time will tell. AND THAT IS CRAZY!