Southern Cal Trojans – The Carroll Years

 

Trojan football has been a part with the NCAA since 1888, with the University of Southern California team having consistently been among the teams to beat. With 11 national titles for the program’s credit, the Trojans have spent significantly of their history dominating the Pacific 10 Conference in which they compete, even though also routinely threatening the national championship picture. Over the last decade, USC has spent quite much of their time ranked within the quite top tier in the vote tabulations that have counted: the Associated Press (AP) and Bowl Championship Series (BCS) polls. Over the course of that decade, the Trojans have been led by Coach Pete Carroll, who made a name for both himself and his team having a fast-paced style of offense and hard-nosed defense.

Not the extremely first choice

Proving that hindsight is indeed 20/20, Carroll’s initial selection in 2000 as the coach from the USC team was an unwelcome one from the perspective of both fans and alumni alike. Coming as he did from the coaching ranks of the NFL – and not having coached in the college game for more than a decade and a half – there have been a lot of who believed that he was merely not the man for the work. Nevertheless, after initial attempting to lure Oregon State’s coach to the team, and then following that up using a failed attempt to acquire the coach from Oregon and an unsuccessful overture to Mike Riley on the San Diego Chargers organization, USC’s athletic department eventually settled for Carroll. To his credit, Pete had never backed away from openly campaigning for the career, which he saw as perfect fit for him and his family. The truly odd thing about the reluctance to hire him is the fact that USC had in simple fact tried to hire him three years before, but he was unable to leave his job even though using Patriots.

A bumpy begin

In the beginning of Carroll’s time at USC it appeared as though he plus the group were providing his critics a lot more than their fair share of ammunition. The 2001 campaign began about as badly as it could have, with the Trojans limping out to a 2 win and 5-loss beginning on the season. Immediately, the sports media began calling Carroll’s hiring a mistake, declaring that the mighty Trojans were now doomed to fade even farther into mediocrity.

Instead, Carroll’s system began to see the results he knew it would, and also the USC Trojans roared back to life. In the procedure, they amassed a record of 67 victories with only 7 defeats, whilst winning a pair of national titles and once again cementing USC’s position as a dominant football program. His teams also managed to win each Pac-10 conference championship title between 2003 and 2008. Within a few short seasons of his hiring, of course, the media consensus had changed its tune, and now held that he had not been a mistake at all, but had rather been among the very best hires in college football history.

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