Ryan ChartrandUSC head football coach Pete Carroll came out and publicly said he’s not going anywhere, but we know how that one goes.
After losing his head coach, Nick Saban to the University of Alabama less than a week ago, Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga is actively pursuing Carroll.
Carroll, who has been on a wish list of NFL owners for years, hasn’t ever pondered leaving his current dynasty. He has coached previously in the NFL but said he enjoys coaching college football more because of the power that he has over his program.
But what if he was given that power over an NFL franchise?
Huizenga personally flew to Costa Rica where Carroll was vacationing recently to talk to him about the job. Huizenga will be willing to not only make him the highest-paid coach in the NFL, but give him complete control of football operations. Any other coach in college would have already signed.
But hopefully Carroll is smart and doesn’t make a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Carroll said Huizenga’s ideas were so intriguing that he couldn’t help but listen.
There’s nothing wrong with listening and letting the billionaire inflate that thing known as your ego, but when it comes to signing on that dotted line, Carroll should tell him thanks, but no thanks. He has the opportunity to stay somewhere and become a living legend. For once, he should be the football coach that makes the right decision, and doesn’t end up looking like a liar, like the person he’d be replacing.
There are several reasons why you shouldn’t even contemplate giving up riding your Trojan horse to swim with a dolphin.
First, learn from Saban’s mistakes. Saban, who split a national championship with Carroll four years ago at LSU, bolted for Miami for big money and the lime light. That was, until he realized that the NFL wasn’t a cake walk. After two years and a 15-17 record, Saban was gone.
Saban quickly realized that to a coach, the NFL stands for Not For Long.
Saban regretted ever leaving LSU, and ended up looking like a fraud and a coward by the way he handled the situation. This is a problem that can easily be avoided if Carroll stays.
He has the most coveted job in all of college athletics. He’s on his way to becoming the Vince Lombardi of college football. The Trojans have won 56 of their last 60 games and have two national championships in the last four years.
ESPN is already ranking USC No. 1 in its preseason poll for 2007. Not only is the world in Carroll’s hands, but he’s a god in Southern California.
Carroll knows better than anyone that USC boosters’ pockets are deeper and more generous than anybody can possibly comprehend.
Carroll is why the NFL doesn’t have a team in Los Angeles. The city isn’t clamoring for one because it already has the Trojans.
You have your choice of the 10-15 best athletes in the country year in, year out.
You have dominant pro prospects begging you to give them a scholarship. In your six years you have created an NFL breeding ground. The second string for USC would start for just about any other school in the nation.
Look at Mike Krzyzewski, for example. He was offered a job no one in their right mind could turn down of coaching one of the most storied franchises in the history of sports, the Los Angeles Lakers. After long and hard thought, he realized he couldn’t leave Duke.
He understood he meant too much to the school and the school meant too much to him. When you think about Duke University, one of the first people who comes to mind is Krzyzewski.
Carroll was 33-31 as a head coach in the NFL in the 1990s.
He has this unique opportunity to become synonymous with one of the most prestigious private schools in the world.
Carroll should be content with what he has because no job in the NFL is worth giving up USC football for.
Unlike those fourth-and-two’s that Carroll loves to go for, this is the one opportunity that he should just punt away.