And once again, Carroll snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
The USC Trojans. What a mess. I had been working on an article discussing the 2009 college football season and how the Florida Gators and the USC Trojans were on a collision course (with apologies to the Texas Longhorns). But now, after this weekend's debacle - a 16-13 USC loss to that 2008 powerhouse, Washington (who went 0-12 in '08.), that article is on the scrap pile.
With my article ruined, there wasn't much left for me to do...
But it got me to thinking. Under Pete Carroll, USC loses to an unranked Pac-10 team every single year. Or at least, nearly every single year. In 2003, the Trojans lost to an unranked Cal team and it cost them the BCS title. They still finished with a split title, winning the Coaches poll, however. Then, in 2006, they lost to a pitiful UCLA team, and again, it cost them a shot at the BCS title. In 2007 they lost to both Stanford and Oregon and the Stanford loss was particularly shocking when you consider they were 41-point favorites. 41 point favorites! To understand how absurd that spread is, it wouldn't have been much worse if Stanford had started me and Stemkovsky.
Stanford, 2007. That's right, they bad.
Fast-forward to last year, 2008. USC was on a collision course with the National Title, riding the wave of an early season defeat of top-ranked Ohio State. Nothing could stop them. Except a lost to unranked Oregon State. Oopsie.
So now we come to 2009. Once again, Carroll has got his team jacked up and whacked up, starting off 2-0 with a rookie QB. A 2-0 start that included a win IN Ohio State no less. Again. In their 3rd game of the season the Trojans went to Washington to face a team that had gone 0-12 last year. They were 1-1 on the year and former Carroll disciple, Steve Sarkisian, had the Huskies believing in themselves. But they were still 19 point home dogs. Didn't matter. Carroll had to start Corp because his rookie QB was banged up, and Corp tossed a pair of interceptions as the Trojans fell to Washington 16-13, thus ending their title hopes for yet another season.
Ain't that a kick in the...uh...pride.
My question, though, is this: What is the common denominator in all this debacles? Two words. Pete Carroll. Sure, you can blame 3rd year sophomore Aaron Corp and his monumentally stupid INT if you want. You can blame senior tailback Stafon Johnson and his fumble which prevented USC from taking an early 17-7 lead. Fullback Stanley Havili also had a second half fumble, and the entire team committed eight penalties for 75 yards. Clearly there was enough blame to go around. But at the end of the day, the blame has to come back to and rest squarely on the shoulders of the head coach: Pete Carroll.
Let's all give Pete some candy.
Before you dump on Corp and Co. too much though, remember the Trojans had John David Booty at the helm in their losses to Oregon State, UCLA and Stanford; the had Matt Leinart at QB for their loss to Cal in 2003 and Mark Sanchez running the show in 2008 in Corvallis. So, QB's good, bad and mediocre, it doesn't seem to matter. What matters is Pete Carroll.
It's good to be a coach in Southern California.
Carroll is the same coach that has sent his team to seven: BCS Bowls in a row; 11-win seasons and top 4 finishes in the AP poll. He's also the same coach that brought his team home from losses to Oregon State, Stanford and Washington.
So here is a theory I want to put forward to you faithful readers out there. I think it's simply a matter of a head coach who is so overly concerned with his team being either too overconfident or too ill prepared to face inferior teams that he creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy in both himself and his teams, thereby ensuring their ultimate defeat. Okay, I just blew everyone's mind. Stemkovsky's brain just broke. He's under the credenza sobbing and sucking his pinky.
Stemkovsky's brain is fragile.
But stay with me here a second. In 2006, Carroll described his game against UCLA as "the toughest opponent of the year." This year, before the Washington game, when asked about Husky QB Jake Locker, Carroll was practically giddy in his praise:
"With (Sarkisian's) coaching and scheme, and everyone all pumped up around him, that makes him extremely dangerous."
My point is, that for the week (or weeks) before these games against inferior opponents, Carroll's teams are programmed, by him, to expect the game to be so difficult that they are almost expecting to be defeated. Contrast this with Carroll's veritable tongue-in-cheek approach to 'big' games against legitimately difficult teams - like Ohio State on the road - where he comments that the home crowd in Ohio "isn't the loudest he's heard," or that Buckeye quarterback Terrell Pryor is 'good' but nowhere near as good as Jake Locker.
Pete Carroll has his teams loosey-goosey for the big games, but tighter than drums for games that shouldn't even be bumps in the road. It's over-coaching taken to its extreme. Carroll needs to just lighten up and realize that these are kids. 18, 19, 20 year old kids. And it's okay to, every once in a while, tell them: "We are A LOT better than this team. Don't worry guys. We should crush them. And we will crush them." But Carroll won't do that. It's just not the way he's cut.
We're Pac-10 champs again! Woohoo!
So what does this mean? It means more BCS bowl games, more Pac-10 titles, but very few - if any - National Titles - for the USC Trojans. At least, not while ol' Self-fulfilling failure Petey Carroll is at the helm.
