Pete Carroll Leaving USC? (Updated)
[Guest post by DRJ]
The LA Times reports USC football coach Pete Carroll may soon become the coach of the NFL Seattle Seahawks:
“The Seattle Seahawks, who today fired coach Jim Mora, are close to reaching an agreement with USC’s Pete Carroll to be their next coach, The Times has learned.
***
Although the Seahawks and Carroll are close to a deal, which is believed to be a five-year contract to become president and head coach at $7 million a year, nothing has been signed, said sources close to the situation who are not authorized to speak on his behalf.”
Seattle’s current coach, Jim Mora, was fired today after just one season.
— DRJ
UPDATE 1/11/2010: Surprise, surprise:
“A source with knowledge of the situation told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz that USC’s notice of infractions included both football and men’s basketball, which may make the timing of Pete Carroll’s departure to the Seattle Seahawks a bit more interesting based on what will come out of the report. The NCAA had folded the two investigations into one so it can review the entire athletic department’s culpability in any possible infractions. That is par for the course in investigations since a failure to monitor can be applied to the entire department.
Per NCAA policy, schools have 90 days to respond to the notice of allegations before a hearing is set on the committee on infractions calendar. That means USC received the notice more than three months ago since a hearing date has been set by the NCAA.The committee on infractions will meet Feb. 19-21 in Tempe, Ariz., and according to a source, USC will be the focus of that meeting with the committee.”
well, he’s been only average the last few years, and the offensive play calling has been, to be cute, offensive. maybe it *is* time for him to move on….
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/8/2010 @ 7:59 pmHmmmm … bad things happening to USC athletics of late. Worse to come?
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 1/8/2010 @ 8:13 pmThat’s the first thing I thought, too, Kevin Murphy.
DRJ (84a0c3) — 1/8/2010 @ 8:32 pmMike K. needs to put his USC mojo to work, stat!
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (9eb641) — 1/8/2010 @ 8:34 pmdid they ever resolve the Reggie Bush fiasco?
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 1/8/2010 @ 8:36 pmUSC will obviously hire Mike Leach.
Actually, didn’t a Seattle school consider Leach? I bet he wishes he had gone there. His hobby is sailing, which is strange for a Lubbock man. I remember him guest hosting the weather forecast in Lots-to-do-Lubbock, going on about how awesome it is when it rains mud.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 1/8/2010 @ 8:40 pmThis will as others have already said, be good for Blondie to get out of town.
There is some black rain about to fall in the land of sunshine.
BUT!!!
He will not succeed in the big boy leagues.
That is just an opinion, not a predication.
TC (0b9ca4) — 1/8/2010 @ 10:26 pmIts a done deal — he’s gone. May have been in the works for as long as the past 2 weeks.
Here is all you need to know about Pete the Cheat — a big source of controversy this past season was his inexplicable decision to go with true freshman Matt Barkley rather than redshirt sophomore Aaron Corp at QB. Corp won the job in the spring, and had the job into the fall camp until he suffered an injury. He was recovered by the end of fall camp, but Barkley had gotten most of the starter’s reps so Carroll named Barkley the starter for the opener even though Barkley hadn’t played that well in practice — generally throwing 1-2 INTs each practice.
Carroll stuck by Barkley, heaping vast amounts of praise on him all year and always finding someone else to blame for Barkley’s mistakes when things went wrong.
Corp, who was in his 3rd year with the program, started one game when Barkley was hurt, but Carroll never actually told Corp he would be starting until right before kickoff.
So, Corp faced now with being buried behind a true freshman on the depth chart, decides its in his best interest to transfer, and he picks a Div. 1AA school so he won’t lose a year of eligibility — he’s going to Richmond.
He got his release and announced his transfer yesterday.
And Pete Carroll has known he was going to be taking the Seattle job for several days, but mentioned nothing about it to Corp, even though Corp might have decided to stay at USC if he thought he could get a fair opportunity to regain the starting position that he won last year before Carroll developed a man-crush on Barkley.
Nice Guy.
WLS Shipwrecked (3d3fb8) — 1/9/2010 @ 2:39 amCarroll knows he’s a much better college coach than pro coach. He’s recent decline is only a result of losing players (a quarterback and some defense stars) early to the pros and losing some great assistant coaches.
I think the reason he has to bail out is that some big scandal is about to hit and USC will suffer some severe sanctions.
I would like to see the Chris Petersen from Boise State, Kyle Wittingham from Utah or even Jim Harbaugh from Stanford.
Alta Bob (e8af2b) — 1/9/2010 @ 8:04 amAgreed. I would add that there are now several very good coaches in the PAC 10. It will be much tougher if not impossible for any one school to dominate the conference the way USC did in the recent past.
Carrol has been unsuccessful in the NFL in the past. The impending scandal has chased him out of town.
Stu707 (0981d5) — 1/9/2010 @ 8:40 amWhy would Carrol want to coach a team with a lower player payroll?
MU789 (514c52) — 1/9/2010 @ 9:09 amI’ve never like Carroll and his BS squeaky – clean garbage; but he’ll just get fired after three miserable years in Seattle and pocket more millions of Paul Allen’s money. At least Bobby Bowden was upfront about his hypocricy.
Dmac (a964d5) — 1/9/2010 @ 9:34 amI guess Pete finally said the football monopoly in Los Angeles is over.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 1/9/2010 @ 12:58 pmIt’s hard to gripe about Pete’s tenure as coach. USC for what eight? years was one of the top five teams in the country.
I could not understand the way he placed Barkley on such a high pedestal and treated Corp so unfairly. Did he think all he had to do was let Barkley start and he would get anther Tebow? Mitch Mustain also never seemed to have a chance at cracking the starting lineup.
After losing out on Manti Te’o and Vontaze Burfict last year, now they’ll have to deal with recruits jumping ship (the Army All_America Bowl today was a Florida love-fest, recruiting-wise). Whomever the next coach is, he’ll have his hands full minimizing the damage, esp if Carroll guts the coaching staff by taking them to Seattle (however I’ll be more disappointed if Jeremy Bates stays, his offensive schemes are very mediocre).
harkin (f92f52) — 1/9/2010 @ 2:22 pmActually, didn’t a Seattle school consider Leach? I bet he wishes he had gone there. Comment by Dustin — 1/8/2010 @ 8:40 pm
The UW talked briefly to Leach, but Sarkisian was the top choice.
And I agree that a big scandal is about to hit USC and that Carroll is trying to get out of town ahead of it.
LASue (5f0073) — 1/9/2010 @ 10:09 pmI’ve updated the post regarding possible USC sanctions.
DRJ (84a0c3) — 1/11/2010 @ 4:36 pm