T1B

This guy...Tom Dienhart...writes for The Sporting News.



Seems he wasn't all that happy about the hiring of Pete Carroll. Check out his letter to Mike Garrett, our AD. Most of my friends felt the same way. I was one out of twenty who thought it was a good hire. Good times.


The Sporting News, Jan 1, 2001

Carroll's hiring is another mistake for troubled USC - University of Southern California football coach Pete Carroll

Tom Dienhart

Dear Mike Garrett:

I think you made a mistake hiring Pete Carroll as USC's next coach. As Trojans athletics director, you needed to hit a home run with this hire. This looks more like a scratch single.

I know. Carroll might end up being grand, but the perception in the here and now is what matters for a program that's on the wane. And that perception isn't good.

Some might compare Carroll to Paul Hackett, the coach he replaces. That might not be fair, but you can't blame them. Carroll is an NFL guy. He's a defensive tactician who hasn't coached in college since 1983, when he was an assistant at Pacific. Hackett was an offensive expert who hadn't coached in college since 1992 when he landed the USC job before the 1998 season. At least Hackett's most recent college stint at the time was as head coach at Pittsburgh.

Unlike Hackett, Carroll proved he can be a successful head coach, leading the New England Patriots to a pair of winning seasons and playoff berths. He's also a super-enthusiastic guy. But Carroll doesn't know college football.

Oh, he's saying the fight things. You know, stuff like, "If you can understand the process in the NFL ... in the draft process, it's all about watching players in college, I don't consider myself unfamiliar with the college game at all."

I'm sure Carroll, like Hackett, knows his X's and O's. The problem is the college game Carroll doesn't know. It was the same one Hackett had trouble grasping. I'm talking about things like academic issues, recruiting / and dealing with alumni.

Is Carroll up for whispering sweet nothings into the ears of know-it-all 18-year-olds? Is Carroll up for spending more time speaking at booster events than breaking down film? Is Carroll up for fans demanding to know why USC can't dominate the Pac-10 anymore?

Carroll needs a positive start and would help himself by retaining defensive line coach Ed Orgeron and running backs coach Kennedy Pola, a pair of Hackett assistants who red-line their intensity meters.

I know, Mike. You say, "Average Joe doesn't know football." Believe what you want, but Average Joe has reason to doubt your hiring skills and thinks you are part of the problem. Hackett was 19-18 at USC, and his last team finished last in the Pac-10, the first time that ever has happened. He was your man after you mishandled the termination of John Robinson after the 1997 season.

Your job might be riding on Carroll's performance. Your non-communicative ways cause people to make conclusions that might not be tree about you and your program. And you didn't help yourself a few years ago when you gave a "pep talk" in the locker room.

It was hard for you to believe people didn't fall over themselves to coach your beloved USC. But it's not that good of a job because it's not 1975 anymore. The 85-scholarship limit has made college football an equal-opportunity sport in which schools such as Oregon State and Virginia Tech have BCS dreams.

Also working against USC are substandard facilities-all the way from Heritage Hall to the antiquated weight room. And the L.A. lifestyle isn't for everyone, especially not for assistant coaches. Housing prices are out of sight. To live in a decent area, coaches must drive an hour to and from work. Their days are long enough as it is.

Oregon State's Dennis Erickson and Oregon's Mike Bellotti are the biggest names who sniffed around the USC job but didn't really pursue it. San Diego Chargers coach Mike Riley would have been a good hire. He served as Oregon State's coach from 1997-98 and was USC's offensive coordinator before that, but he couldn't make up his mind. When he continued to drag his feet, you grabbed Carroll, who was out of work last season.

Contrast that to the job search at Alabama. Marquee names such as Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer and Miami's Butch Davis seriously considered taking the job. In the end, the Tide got TCU coach Dennis Franchione, one of the hottest coaches in the college game.

Dennis Franchione, USC Coach. Would've had a nice ring to it.

Sincerely,

Tom

It is quite funny. That and you keep a database on SC coaches.

Props IB Meds.

Luck & fate. Be thankful you had both.

I was right there in agreement with most everybody else at the time. Carroll seemed like a last ditch retread hire after everybody else we pursued said no to the gig, and I definitely wasn't happy about it.

Still though....Dennis Franchione??

I love shit like this. Here's my favorite, from Ivan Maisel



Notre Dame football exists only in history books

History will record Dec. 3, 2004, as the day that Notre Dame football died. The Fighting Irish will still fight. The gold helmets will still reflect the Golden Dome. But the House That Rockne Built, the monolith that bestrode the sport for eight decades, expired Friday when Urban Meyer turned down Notre Dame to go to Florida.

That's Florida, whose winning tradition goes all the way back to 1990.

Notre Dame football, that national championship machine, exists only in the history books. My generation knows that tradition. Meyer knew it. He coached there. He drank the Irish Kool-Aid. And still he said no.

It's as if Meyer were an up-and-coming businessman offered the national sales franchise -- for typewriters. Thanks, he said, but I think I'll sell computers.

Florida won over Meyer for a lot of reasons -- a reported seven-year, $14 million contract, an abundant talent base and admission standards that a coach "can work with." The bottom line, however, is winning. If Meyer thought it would be easier to win at Notre Dame than at Florida, he would be wearing blue and gold today.

Instead, he has gone to the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference. Meyer decided it would be easier to win coaching against Mark Richt, Philip Fulmer, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban every season than it would be waking up the echoes.

Somewhere, Beano Cook just fainted.

Notre Dame officials and Florida officials both went to Salt Lake City. Either the Notre Dame officials suffered from the worst case of overconfidence since Dewey defeated Truman, or Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley and his checkbook made Notre Dame appear to be the small Catholic university that it really is.

When NBC fouled up the election results in 2000 -- in Florida, as it would happen -- Tom Brokaw said he had egg on his face and an omelet on his suit. There isn't a dry cleaner within 300 miles of South Bend who could tidy up the mess the Notre Dame administration made.

How in the name of Frank Leahy do you fire Tyrone Willingham without having Meyer in your back pocket? How does a school embarrassed by hiring George O'Leary three years ago come back and embarrass itself again?

I suppose the damage isn't irreparable. The great thing about college football is that the right man on the right campus at the right time can work miracles. California, left for dead for the last 40 years, has been resurrected by Jeff Tedford. Notre Dame could find a Tedford. It may even be able to find Tedford.

Forty-one years ago, a little-known coach named Ara Parseghian arrived and resurrected a program that had suffered a 10-year drought. There may be an Ara out there now. But it feels like something has changed in the DNA of college football. Notre Dame is no longer Notre Dame.

Schadenfreude is not an Irish word. It's German for enjoying the trouble of others. Even Willingham, class act that he is, must have had trouble suppressing a smile Friday.

Killian wrote:
That's Florida, whose winning tradition goes all the way back to 1990.

Well atleast he got one part right

well when tOSU was looking they brought in some names (Bellotti, supposedly talked with Gruden) but in the end it was down to Mason and Tressel...I knew of Tressel from YSU (we went to a lot of HS games in Warren near Y-Town) and a lot of players from the HS we went to see went to YSU so the coach always talked about how Tressel was a stand up guy and what not...

I think the

49-13 record
3 Bowl Wins (2 of which are BCS)
1 National Championship
and a 4-1 record vs your rival...

yep there were naysayers and there still are...but F-EM...

^^^ I remember most fans wanting Mason, but I was a Tressel-guy as soon as Coop sold his first hot tub. I recall rumors that Bellotti had never even heard of the Horseshoe.

I seem to remember Mason lobbying hard for the gig, then looking un-faithful as he remained at Minnie.