With the news of Pete Carroll’s departure from USC appearing to be rather certain, fans of teams who have aspirations of competing for a national championship are all asking the same question – “what does this mean for us?”
A few thoughts…
1. USC’s reign over the Pac 10 has officially ended and Rick Neuheisel had nothing to do with it. Now is the time for teams like Oregon, Arizona, UCLA and even Stanford to make their claim as the conference power.
2. If Mike Riley of Oregon State is USC’s top choice, then the rest of the country doesn’t have much to fear. Riley is a good coach, but I’m not sure that he has the right make-up to continue Carroll’s success.
3. What will be Carroll’s legacy at USC? Yes, I know the numbers – he won 80% of his games, won his bowl games and took home a national championship and produced two heisman trophy winners – all measure that would consider him one of the best of today.
4. However, I can’t help but wonder if he is such a media darling that his accomplishments are not put into proper perspective. His program appears to be on the verge of being convicted of major NCAA violations, he almost always managed to stub his toe against an overmatched opponent, was victim to the greatest upset in college football history (vs. Stanford), and despite all of the built in advantages USC had to offer, he “only” managed to win one undisputed national championship. I’m not saying Pete’s not a great coach, far from it, I’m just curious if these factors are going to prevent him from being considered one of the best of all-time.
5. The Pac 10 will likely lose some prestige if USC suffers in the win column the next couple of years, which is too bad because the conference is getting much better with strong coaches (Kelly, Riley, Sarkisian, Stoops, Harbaugh). You might argue that the Pac 10 has the strongest coaching lineup, even agains the mighty SEC. But let’s face it, the Pac 10 is college football’s version of Home Alone – they’re the forgotten child. In order to retain what prestige they have, another team is going to have to be perfect – but not just in record. They are going to have to satisfy the criteria of the media types judging them against the past Trojan teams more than their current competition. Not only will they have to be undefeated overall, they will have to win by a wide margin, beat a high profile SEC or Big 12 team and win their bowl game – perhaps all of this in consecutive years in order to get the attention they want. It may not be fair, but absent a strong USC team in conference play to validate their accomplishments, voters will fall back into old habits of forgetting about the left coast.
