The University of Southern California Trojans have been playing college football since 1888, and have been playing winning football for much of that history. Their regular domination of the teams in the Pacific-10 Conference has helped them to win a total of eleven national championships, while being in contention for many others. In addition, the team has been one of the most consistent over the last ten years, and has been a regular recipient of a top ten ranking in the major polls. They have spent much of that time in the top five of the AP and BCS polls. That decade coincided with the tenure of Pete Carroll, who brought a professional style of offense and defense to the college game when he was hired by the Trojans in the year 2000.

Not Love at First Sight

Oddly enough – given Carroll’s eventual success with the team, there were few people cheering his selection when he was first hired. Much of the disapproval stemmed from the fact that he had spent the better part of the last decade coaching in the NFL, and there were detractors who felt that the adjustment to the college game would prove too much for the man. In fact, the USC coaching selection process involved several unsuccessful attempts to recruit three other coaches first – from Oregon State, Oregon, and the San Diego Chargers. For various reasons, none of the three initial choices accepted the job, leaving Carroll as the best available option. Carroll helped his cause by pursuing the post with vigor, in part due to the fact that his daughter was already attending the University. What makes the selection process even more inexplicable is the fact that the University had, just three short years before, tried unsuccessfully to lure Carroll away from the New England Patriots.

An Uneasy Transition

Unfortunately for Carroll, his team’s start to the 2001 season gave every indication that he was going to prove his critics correct. The Trojans only managed two wins in their first seven games, and many fans and alumni immediately began second-guessing his selection to the coaching job. The media piled on, going so far as to call his hire one of the worst selections ever made. Some even predicted that the Carroll era would mark the end of USC’s competitiveness and the start of a steady decline.

What happened instead surprised everyone but Carroll and the players who had come to believe in his system. The Trojans began to win – and refused to stop. They bounced back from that abysmal start and proceeded to win 67 of their next 74 games, dominated their way to two national championships, and re-established the Trojans’ football program as an elite force in the college ranks. In addition, the USC teams under Carroll captured every conference championship from 2003 to 2008. By then, everyone had forgotten about the early days of his tenure with the team, and even the media began to refer to him as perhaps being the best coaching selection ever made by any team.

Author Bio: Ivan Jamison is a big sports fan. You can check out his Southern Cal Trojans Watch or his Los Angeles Dodgers Watch or his New York Mets Watch

Category: Sports
Keywords: Southern Cal Trojans