You know how you see those lists that start out “if you had to choose one coach…”?
Well, all I know is that if I were a head coach, the last place I’d want to be would be in a game against a Pete Carroll team that had a month to prepare for my team. Sure, USC has a bad habit of screwing the pooch against Numbnutz U once a year, but, man, in a big game, the guy is money.
Get The Picture 
Unless you have Vince Young.
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It doesn’t hurt when you get matched up against the most overrated conference year in and year out. We’ve faired pretty well against their teams as well.
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Is it all Carroll or is alot of it the elite players he recruits? Would Carroll be an elite coach at Mississippi or Vandy? Who knows but I know we practically out “athleted” some of our competion this year. Just look at the screwball crap we did in the 1st half againest MSU. A better team would have destroyed us. Not taking anything away from the win but we have a helluva long ways to go at Georgia to be considered with Texas, Oklahoma etc.
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Can you still say “Dude can Coach” when he loses against Oregon State and Stanford? No question, he’s a great coach in totallity, I’m just bringing up the point that lately he misses on one lesser game (usually in conference) per year.
He (or maybe its the players, not sure which)seems to always focus on the big games. And those turn out to be blow-outs. He wouldn’t be bitching & whining so much as of late if he (and/or his players) turned in the same performance against the lesser teams as well. Just sayin’
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Not saying Carroll can’t coach, but he has no excuse for not having a top 5 team every year. California has as much or more high school talent as Florida, but it doesn’t have teams like Georgia or Alabama coming in to recruit the talent. USC is the only big time football school on the West Coast, and 5 star players aren’t going to pick teams like Washington State or Stanford.
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Sorry, not buying the what the commenters are saying. Yes, Carroll has screwed up some games against lesser opponents, but he also has taken his team to the MNCG more than enough times. When has he not won at least a share of the Pac-10 title? Yes, they lost to Vince Young, but it wasn’t like Texas, I mean Vince, blew USC out.
Plus, USC was a team with tradition that had been on the skids with highs of mediocrity before Carroll got there. I remember thinking, “what a dumb hire, that guy did nothing with the Jets and wasn’t much with the Pats = NFL retread”, but he proved me and others wrong. He brought USC back to national prominence.
Is he in a prime recruiting location? Yes, but I don’t buy the argument that he doesn’t face the challenges Florida does. You don’t think Cal, UCLA, or Oregon(s) can’t or don’t try to get those guys in California? If they can’t get them it is because Pete Carroll and his staff and developed a well-tuned recruiting machine that take every top player in the state. There was a pretty interesting article earlier this year that actually pointed out that his superior recruiting was actually hurting him because it made the rest of the Pac-10 weaker.
I really like Richt, but I tip my hat to Carroll and Stoops.
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I actually think he is one of the best coaches but talent seems to helpmake coaches look good. Vince helped a good Texas team and Mack Brown look better. Hershel turned a 5-6 team around. Talent has helped our current staff at times.
Pete Carroll is a rare ex-NFL coach who has a good personality so he can recruit well in college. When you see him on the side line he is usually encouraging his team and seems to be someone you would want to play for if you were a player.
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Hats off to Carroll.
His team is disciplined. With all the distractions of going to school in downtown LA you don’t hear about arrests of off the field problems.
He players are committed. Every spring the depth chart is cleaned and every player must earn their spot. He practices ones against ones each week.
He can evaluate talent, esp. coaching talent. Look at his assistants and what they have done.
Does it help playing in a soft conference and not getting beat up week in and week out, sure. But don’t sell the guy short. He is a true CEO head coach who has his stuff in one bag.
I am glad the only time we will see him is in a MNC game.
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Coastal Dawg hits it on the head. I’m not sure there’s a better coach out there than sneaky Pete (although you could make a case for Urban or Saban). The Stanford loss was embarassing, but I don’t think anyone is saying Carroll is perfect. And we can knock him for the inferior Pac-10 competition, but he has nothing to do with what conference his school plays in. They schedule legitimate out of conference games and typically destroy the competition. What’s more, he does it without being a soulless shell of a human like Nick, Urban, or Stoops. It’s hard to hate a guy for helping a bunch of 18 to 22 year olds enjoy their youth and win impressively while doing it.
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“You don’t think Cal, UCLA, or Oregon(s) can’t or don’t try to get those guys in California?”
Sure they do, but they suck, where USC doesn’t. USC is the only elite level program west of Texas. A top recruit can go to USC, a team fawned upon by the press and play in the Rose Bowl every year, or he can choose Oregon and have a beautiful weight room and maybe go blind looking at his uniform. Which do you think he’s going to choose?
On the flip side, there a 5 D-I schools in Florida, not to mention the rest of the SEC. I’m not taking anything from Carroll, who is undoubtedly a good coach, but he’s in a uniquely advantageous position right now at USC.
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What really impresses me about Carroll is how motivated his team is for most games. There wasn’t a more fired up team than USC yesterday.
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There is no other elite coach that has a loss worse than the ’07 one to Stanford. And I’m including Saban’s boners against UAB and LA-Monroe.
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The one thing I do like about Carroll is that when he senses that the other teams soft under belly is exposed, he goes for the kill to put them away and put them away as early as possible. Too many things can go wrong in college football and even though it might loook like you are ging for style points it accomplishes a few important things: 1st, you are ensuring a win, 2nd, You can get your first stringers plenty of rest after they have sealed the game, then you can get your players of the future important reps and game experience they can`t normally get except during practice.
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It’s interesting that talent is used as a “yeah, but…” when it comes to coaches like Carroll. Recruiting is job #1 in college football, and getting it done in February is as important as what goes on the rest of the year.
Lots of other coaches have rolled out of bed into that goldmine of talent in Southern Cal between the 1970s and Carroll’s arrival and didn’t do a thing with it. Many more coaches across town at UCLA have failed themselves.
He might have a leg up when it comes to homegrown talent, but you still have to do something with it and then keep finding ways to motivate (not ANOTHER Rose Bowl…sigh…).
The best make it look easy. Carroll succeeds with all of the California talent, Mack Brown cleans up Texas, and Urban Meyer can recruit Florida, but replace them with Paul Hackett, John Mackovic, or Ron Zook and see what coaching means.
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Irish,
I would argue that Cal and Oregon have been just as successful as FSU and Miami during much of Carroll’s tenure. They don’t have the name recognition that the Florida schools do, but they have been successful. Also, South Florida, UCF and/or FAU are recent additions to legitimate programs in Florida.
I will concede that USC probably has it easier, but they have also helped to make it easier on themselves by creating a recruiting machine and getting results out of those recruits.
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I’ll give Pete credit. He’s a heck of a coach and deserves every kiss blown his way by the media and talking heads. Yes he typically has a head scratcher once a year but what coach doesn’t. His team is going to get everybody’s best shot. Every team wants to say they beat So. Cal.. Say what you will about them beating Penn St. or whatever Big 10 team but I don’t think many teams would have fared much better. I would have liked to have played USC last year but I’m damn glad we didn’t have to play them yesterday.
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Jason,
Hasn’t Miami won a NC since Carroll got to LA? Yes, Florida State and UM haven’t been dominant lately, but both are more marquee programs than most West Coast teams.
Again, I’m not knocking Carroll’s coaching. He gets great results out of his guys, but he gets the pick of the litter from a vast pool of talent.
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Hi, guys! If you’re wondering what recruiting-but-sorry-ass-coaching looks like, see also: Me, 2002-current.
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Here’s the stat about Carroll that I’m most impressed with: excluding his first year (2001), his USC teams have not lost a game by more than a touchdown. There may be some problem with approach to some lesser games, but what that tells me is that he (and his staff) knows how to make proper adjustments to insure that they are in every single game they play.
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