Pete’s on the Hot Seat

Watching last night’s absolutely amazing Super Bowl that will undoubtedly go down as the best of all time mainly because of the classic, game-changing play-making orchestrated by the Steelers’ future hall of fame QB Big Ben, I couldn’t help but think about a recent epic game that we failed to highlight.

The Fiesta Bowl.  Texas vs. Ohio State, where once again, Texas won due to last second heroics from a star quarterback.  And this wasn’t against a USC team riding a wave of media success into a national championship game they’d already been deemed the winners of, led by a coach whose ego barely fit into the Rose Bowl that night.  No, this was against a Buckeyes team desperate not to be embarrassed on the big stage during bowl season for the third year in a row.  And they more than accomplished that task.

Time for some multiple choice.  Pete Carroll’s behavior at Mark Sanchez’s press conference was:

A)childish

B)rude

C)self-serving

D)exactly what we at Pete’s On The Hot Seat have come to expect from the man

The answer, of course, is all of the above.

Utah finished second in the Associated Press Poll and fourth in the Coaches’ Poll.  I’m not sure which is more of a joke.  I can understand the press succumbing to peer pressure, but the coaches should know better than to rank such an undeserving team so high.

A 10+ win season.  Pounding a Big Ten team in the Rose Bowl.  Finishing in the top four of the polls.  And sending a number of players to the NFL, many of whom will be drafted in the first round.

I’ve come to expect nothing less from Coach Pete Carroll.  And I’m sick of it.

“Nothing special.”

That’s how the Boyish One described USC’s performance last Saturday in our over-hyped matchup with Ohio State. For once Pete and I couldn’t agree more.

For those of us who demand excellence from Mr. $4.4 million there was nothing special about the Men of Troy hanging less than 40 points on a defense missing TWO starters from last year’s team, at home, on national television. ‘Special’ isn’t a word I would use to describe a punchless running attack that never found paydirt, only averaged a little over five yards a carry, and did nothing to resolve the Trojans’ crippling running back controversy (more on this in a later post).

This game represented an unprecedented opportunity for Coach Carroll to tell an indifferent nation that USC was back, and that after three frustrating years in the cellar of the Bowl Championship Series, we deserve another chance in the big show, a chance to play for the ADT Security Services National Championship Trophy rather than have to settle for another^[1] irrelevant engraving on an ancient trophy from yesteryear’s formerly prestigious Rose Bowl game.

After USC’s win over Ohio State, everyone (well, almost everyone, more on that later) is talking about how USC is the clear #1 team and will be in the national championship game come January.  We’ve heard that before, only to have Pete Carroll screw things up.

Ohio State was clearly overrated.  They got blown out by LSU and Florida the last two years.  It would have been a disappointment for USC NOT to blow them out.  In fact, failing to score 40 points on them is practically a loss.

Sure USC gave them their most lopsided loss under Jim Tressel and held them without a touchdown for the first time in 140 games.  Big deal.  They were missing their leading rusher, Chris “Beanie” Wells, a extraordinary talented running back who surely would have won the Heisman this year if not for his unfortunate injury.

As a USC football fan (and college football fan in general), I spend a lot of time on ESPN reading every bit of news, trivia, and biased opinion that I can find.  The other day, Ivan Maisel’s column pointed out a very interesting bit of information: “In just one game, UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel has measured up to USC coach Pete Carroll. The Trojans’ 14 losses over the course of Carroll’s seven-plus seasons have been by a total of 59 points. The Bruins needed only one loss for Neuheisel to tie Carroll.”

Now as much as we love seeing the ucla bRuins get blown out (by a Mountain West team!), what really caught our attention was the fact that Pete Carroll has lost 14 games.  For those of you keeping score at home, that averages out to two losses a season, and that kind of playing ain’t going to bring home anymore crystal balls.

After looking into it further, we learned some things that are worth pointing out.