USC head coach Carroll a steal regardless of price

Whatever USC is paying Pete Carroll, it isn’t enough.

It was one thing to build a college football dynasty when Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne or Oklahoma’s Bud Wilkinson did it, another when Alabama’s Bear Bryant and Nebraska’s Tom Osborne did it. It’s something altogether different today.

The simple fact is that it’s never been more difficult. Loyalty has never been in shorter supply. No team, no matter how long and glorious a tradition, can stockpile talent like it did back in the day. With scholarship limits and recruiting rules without much wiggle room, kids will go wherever they can play right away – and get to the pros as soon as possible.

Yet somehow USC, hit harder by defections than just about any of its rivals, has won 34 games in a row and stands only one more win from a third straight national championship. The real measure of the program, and Carroll’s genius in nurturing it, is how easy they’ve made the whole thing look.

“It hasn’t been as hard as people would think,” Carroll said Sunday, a day after putting an exclamation point on the regular season by crushing cross-town rival UCLA.

“Because once we found our way of doing things, we just stuck with it,” he said. “It’s been the discipline and the strength of your belief in what you’re doing that’s made this possible.”

Almost a year ago, the coach sat in a postgame interview at the Orange Bowl after wrapping up one of the best college seasons ever with a second title. His team’s fingerprints were still fresh on the silver trophy. The questions about an encore had already begun.

We know now how that turned out. But at that moment, most of the inquiries centered on whether Southern California’s gifted passer, Matt Leinart, already penciled in as the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, would be back.

“It’s going to take a lot for me to leave,” Leinart replied, prompting smirks all around. A lot to most people is only a little to a general manager in desperate need of a franchise quarterback.

“I know I have a quick decision to make in the next week or so,” he added, “but it’s just something special that we’re a part of.”

There was no telling whether this was an inspired bargaining ploy or a college kid just goofy enough to take at his word. Before you could decide which, Carroll stepped in. Not because he was afraid of what Leinart might say next; more likely because the coach already knew what that was, even if the kid didn’t.

Carroll is so unafraid of change that he brings back some of the players that departed for the NFL during his tenure – Carson Palmer, say, or Troy Polamalu – to counsel those still in the program. And nearly all of them say the same thing.

“They’ll never get these years back. The NFL does not feel like this when you play and perform in a program like this. The point is, when you know it’s that special,” Carroll said, smiling at his junior quarterback sitting just a few feet away, “why would you want to leave it so soon?”

Not everybody takes the advice, of course. By the time USC began practice in the fall, four All-American players and four assistant coaches from the team that dominated Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl that night had moved on to better-paying opportunities.

The most telling loss of the lot was supposed to be offensive coordinator Norm Chow, the mad scientist whose schemes brought all that talent to life. We know now how that turned out, too.

The Trojans are averaging – averaging! – 50 points a game and almost 600 yards. Their 82 touchdowns eclipsed a Pac-10 record that had stood for 76 years. When Leinart hands off to Reggie Bush sometime near the start of the Rose Bowl against Texas, it will mark the first time two Heisman Trophy winners played in the same backfield.

“One of the keys to finding consistency is not being knocked any which way by the hype and the buildup,” Carroll said. “We’ve found a way of dealing with that and … taking our best preparation into the big game.”

Carroll does not mention his own role in all of this, how a guy thought to be too nice for the NFL after unimpressive stints coaching the Jets and Patriots could be a perfect fit back in the college game. It sounds corny when he talks about being part of something “special,” but it translates into a shared responsibility that has brought out the best in just about everybody he’s come in contact with at USC.

Assistant coaches are encouraged to take chances, freshmen urged to challenge upperclassmen for playing time. The willingness to experiment that earned Carroll only derision in the NFL has brought him the kind of success – if not quite the paycheck – it seemed like would always be beyond his reach.