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Forget The Sanctions, Carroll's Legacy Is Ironclad

Ryan Nunez |
June 21, 2010 | 3:35 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Pete Carroll won over 80 percent of his games as USC's head coach.
(Creative Commons)

Pete Carroll brought USC football back from the brink of mediocrity and led the team to national prominence. In spite of what has happened since he left, that will forever be the bottom line when his legacy is discussed.

The current sanctions against the program should not and will not be able to erase the fact that Carroll thrust USC back into the national spotlight. In fact, this situation can only serve to vindicate him.

If USC rides out these sanctions and still finishes atop the national and Pac-10 regular season standings, this will serve as proof that Carroll built one of the strongest modern day college football programs ever.

Even if they don't come out on top after this, Carroll's resume speaks for itself.

The fact that USC football was close to irrelevant in the late 1990s may seem incredible to younger Trojan fans reading this article, but SC's football program was an afterthought in those days, an also-ran in the national picture. The coach who preceded Carroll, Paul Hackett, had run the program into the ground. During his three years as coach, the Trojans were a middling 19-18 and their star was fading fast -- Hackett's tenure at SC served as a path to his current job, the esteemed quarterbacks coach for the Oakland Raiders.  

Carroll took over in 2001 and brought USC back in every way a coach can bring a program back from the dead. For the Trojans, back from the dead was a relative term, of course. They were still having occasional success in the Pac-10, having won two Pac-10 titles in the 90s, but the program was dead on the national scene. USC had not won a national title since 1978 and a USC player hadn't won the Heisman Trophy since Marcus Allen took home the award in 1981.  

To make matters worse, the Trojans' record from 1996-2001 was 38-35, the second worst five-year stretch in the program's history.  This record was abysmal by SC standards, as were UCLA's eight-game winning streak against the Trojans and Notre Dame's 13-year unbeaten streak against them. To hardcore fans, such embarrassment at the hands of USC's rivals was totally unacceptable.

Athletic Director Mike Garrett wasted little time running College Football Hall of Famer John Robinson out of town in 1997 and gave Hackett an even shorter leash. Firing those two big name coaches was borderline unthinkable for an A.D. of limited stature and, at the time, powerful boosters and alumni were lining up to take a bite out of Garrett. Then Carroll came around.

Many people forget that Carroll was not Garrett's first or second choice, but rather his fourth. Carroll lobbied for the job, seeing it as a great opportunity, whereas the other candidates ran from the job.  The aforementioned boosters and alumni tied Garrett's fate to Carroll's.  "If Pete doesn't win, you're both out" was the not-so-subtle message.  

The rest is history. Within two seasons, Carroll had resuscitated the program and brought it back to prominence. His achievements at USC read like a list of a university's lifetime achievements:

-Overall record of 97-19
-One BCS Title (2004)
-Two national championships (Associated Press titles in 2003 and 2004)
-Seven consecutive AP Top 4 finishes
-Six BCS bowl victories
-Seven consecutive BCS bowl appearances
-Seven consecutive years as Pac-10 champions or co-champions
-A national record 33 consecutive weeks as the AP's No. 1-ranked team
-A record of 16-2 against Notre Dame and UCLA
-Three Heisman Trophy winners (Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush)
-Four Top 5 recruiting classes
-A 34-game home winning streak
-Seven consecutive 11-win seasons
-An unmatched three consecutive Rose Bowl victories

Bottom line: USC has a better college football program, better facilities, more donations and endowments, and, despite the sanctions, a better reputation in every aspect than it did before Pete Carroll arrived. Period.

Regardless of what happens over the next two years, he'll be remembered as one of the greatest coaches in school history.



 

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