Surprise! Pete Carroll is Lying

Pete Carroll is a liar. Plain and simple. Absolutely. No question.


The Seattle Seahawks coach, who just won the Super Bowl, wants us to believe he would have never left his USC head coaching gig to take the Seattle job had he known SC was going to suffer NCAA sanctions that would cripple the program for years. He bailed out in January, 2010, five months before the NCAA lowered the boom on USC with years worth of penalties, including a loss of 30 scholarships over three years and two years without bowls. In an LA Times interview, Carroll claimed he would have stayed at SC to help rebuild had he known the sanctions would be that severe.

Ha!

Does Carroll think we're stupid? Does he really think we believe he would have hung around SC for the dog days? Does he think we believe he would have passed up the cushy Seattle job to wade through the penalty-laden muck at SC, where winning, with those restrictions, would be extremely difficult? Carroll had unprecedented success at SC. With a gaudy 97-19 record and six BCS wins in seven games, USC was one of the top five college teams of the last decade. But hampered by sanctions, SC wouldn't be able to effectively compete with the cream of the Pac12--Stanford and Oregon--thus staining Carroll's record. And he swears he would have hung around to help dig SC out of that hole.

Ha!

SC was busted primarily because the family of RB Reggie Bush was taking all sorts of goodies from sports marketers. Carroll claims he and his coaches knew nothing about the violations. He also contends that he never thought the sanctions for those violations would be that severe.

Ha!

First of all, talking to sources close to the program in those glory days, apparently lots of people knew the Bush family was on the take. According to one source, it was "an open secret." If players and their buddies knew, how could the coaches be that blind to what was going on? Not only that, it was clear--very clear--that the NCAA was going to crucify SC. A slap on the wrist just wasn't going to happen. According to one source, many in the football program knew that the NCAA hated SC and that smug, arrogant athletic director Mike Garrett, instead of being diplomatic, was being difficult with investigators and ruining any chance of light penalties. So the NCAA, which took years to build its case, was sure to crush SC. Many close to the program, said the source, knew what was coming. So Carroll, a hands-on leader with his nose in everything, certainly knew what was coming.

Carroll was just biding his time at SC until the right pro head-coaching job came along. He insisted that wasn't true but, said the source, those close to the program knew that denial was pure nonsense, that he would bolt for the NFL the moment he got the right pro offer. But, he'd be more attractive to a pro team if he were armed with a flashy collegiate record. If the SC program took a dive, as it surely would if handcuffed by penalties, that would take some of the gloss off Carroll's record. So it would be a smart move, given his agenda, for him to escape SC as soon as possible.

According to one source, the NCAA knew in 2009, long before the sanctions were announced, that SC was going to be murdered. The NCAA, said the source, which dislikes SC as much as the rest of the college football world, delayed the official announcement just to make SC sweat. But word leaked out in 2009 about the unmerciful sanctions. According to the source, even people at other schools knew what was coming--and were delighted.

So, many knew the NCAA hammer was about to cut the SC program off at the knees. And Carroll, when he skipped out to Seattle, didn't know crushing penalties were just around the corner.

Ha!