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I'm a terrible writer. I have absolutely no credibility. But all week, I've been working on a feature about how overrated USC is. Before you quit reading, listen to the national podcast. I've been telling everyone to take USC and the points. Oregon State is terrible. (At football. By all accounts, Corvallis is a cool place.) So I'm not trying to gloat about calling a game right- I was dead wrong. I tried to convince a friend to give me 5:1 odds USC would be leading at the end of the 3rd once Oregon State was up 21-0 at the half. All that being said, I'm incredibly pissed off USC had to go and lose before I could complete this blog, so now I'm rushing it to press, and offering what little evidence I can that this was my opinion before the rest of the nation started piling on this morning. I'll elaborate, after you click 'read more'. Deal?...
Allow me to begin by saying I started thinking of this in the last week or so. Colin Cowherd, on his radio show, said something along the lines of 'Are you trying to tell me Tommy Tuberville is a better coach than Pete Carroll?' to a caller. It got me thinking that yeah, maybe he is. We know about the arc of the Patriots- Parcells to the SuperBowl, then the lowly Pete Carroll era, then Bill Belichick turns them into arguably the greatest team of all time. If you don't know about the Pete Carroll era in New England, go through some Bill Simmons archives. I also know NFL success and college success are not related, except that they may be inversely related (although I have a suspicion Art Shell would be terrible in college, too).
I semi-regularly exchange sports-related emails with a college friend, who also works at my former employer (in Florida). The pace has picked up, as his Mets and my Red Sox are making the playoff push (to varying degrees of success), and of course college football is in full swing. Yesterday he sent me the observation:
I try not to look ahead, but Oklahoma, USC, and maybe even PSU or USF could go unbeaten. I think we have a shot to do the same. Naturally, some of these teams always lose along the way, but I think we could be in for another BC-Mess year. USC/Florida if we're both undefeated, regardless of what everyone else does???
This gave me a forum to talk about my recent thoughts on USC. So here is my reply, which I'll try to substantiate with a screen shot so you can see the timestamp of the email:
Yeah, but I doubt USC goes undefeated. Not because I don't think they are clearly better than every team they'll play, but because it always seems to happen. Oregon State in 06, Stanford in 07...
I have this theory I'm formulating about Pete Carroll being a very overrated coach. He is clearly a great recruiter, but if all of these teams the last however long were supposed to be so dominant, how do they have only one BCS title (04- and Auburn didn't get a fair shake that year)? That being said, they are really good, great in big games with time off, and everyone watching. But if you're the greatest coach/team ever, you should be able to avoid the slipups mentioned above. The Reggie Bush team almost got beat by Fresno State. I'm not entirely sure, but I do think Carroll gets a free pass from a lot of people (those people could be smarter than me, but I'm looking into it). There was a radio host who said to a caller 'Are you telling me Tommy Tuberville is a better coach than Pete Carroll?', and it got me thinking that, yeah, maybe he is.
I'm with you about not looking ahead. And everyone dismisses the SEC team getting left out. But it happened to Auburn.
You can't argue that USC and Pete Carroll get a free pass from the media. And if you were a recruit, why wouldn't you want to go there? (Note: if you're a recruit, come to Florida. Urban Meyer is the best coach in America. And LA will fall into the ocean in a massive earthquake. It's science.) I would never argue that USC isn't a good team. But they get so much more attention because they are the only real football program in their part of the country. There are too many other excellent teams and coaches around college football to continuously crown USC and Pete Carroll as 'the best ever'. Or take it as a given that they should always be #1. And I fully expect this cycle to repeat this season, the whole 'well they are playing the best at the end of the season' argument, after they win a bowl game against an overmatched Big Ten school. Lee Corso, crazy old man as he is, said it best on the radio this morning, (this quote is from memory, I don't wish to change what Mr. Corso actually said, in case you find a clip) "I think they'll still be in the hunt, because their name is still USC, and everyone expects them to be in the discussion. If this loss was to someone like Alabama, it'd just be accepted that they aren't as good as advertised and they would be out of the BCS title talk. But they're USC."
Again, I never thought they'd lose last night. They had a bye week, they play very well in the national TV games, Oregon State is bad... I never expected this one to be close. But before last night's game, and even more so today, I think there is a lot of credibility in asking the question, is Pete Carroll overrated?
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