Southern Cal Coach Pete Carroll (official thread)

[The Man]

on extension per ESPN news. No offense methomps but I really was hoping some NFL team would lure him to the league. No details plan on being released.

[NFBuck]

Its been said before...Petey would be a fool to leave that job. He's the toast of that town, the coach of a powerhouse program that will continue to thrive. I can't stand USC and their neverending media lovefest, but you can't help but respect how he revived a pretty dormant program.

[Bucktastic]

Yeah....thats too bad.

More and More #1 guys to come!!!! and fire up PETEY1 (His private jet)

[Tipdogusaf]

i bet it is close to 5 mil a year

[Zurp]

Originally Posted by NFBuck

Its been said before...Petey would be a fool to leave that job.

That would be worse than Spurrier leaving Florida.

[SanAntonioBuck]

Originally Posted by NFBuck

Its been said before...Petey would be a fool to leave that job. He's the toast of that town, the coach of a powerhouse program that will continue to thrive. I can't stand USC and their neverending media lovefest, but you can't help but respect how he revived a pretty dormant program.

They would have to run me out of town! Dude, could be the mayor of LA.

[tedginn05]

Yea just wait until they turn like Oklahoma did. Old Petey won't be the "toast of the town" then.

[ScriptOhio]

Interesting Petey story. I like the line: "Pete's like a beautiful woman, the closer you get, you better look out," Ruel said. "He is very charismatic. He can smile and make you feel like a million dollars."

Time to meet the man behind USC's success

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=10></TD><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=50></TD><TD noWrap>Dec. 31, 2005
By Dennis Dodd
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Dennis your opinion!

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<TABLE style="MARGIN: 5px 0px 5px 5px" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 8px; BORDER-LEFT: #cccccc 1px solid"><NOBR></NOBR></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- T9129380 --><!-- Sesame Modified: 12/31/2005 15:17:05 --><!-- sversion: 6 $Updated: rbrunner$ -->LOS ANGELES -- Warning: This part of the Rose Bowl is not sexy.

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No Heisman Trophy winners. No celebrity schmooze. No best-ever arguments. No NFL draft updates from each team's backfield.
This part of the Rose Bowl starts where every coach will tell you greatness begins -- in the offensive line. Don't click out of this because you've heard it all before.
Because you haven't.
Come back with us 47 years or so to the front seat of Pat Ruel II's car. It was there that his curious son lifted up a floor cover, unhooked a latch and found a bunch of guns and ammo. Pat Ruel III turned to his dad that innocent day and gave him that, "What's up?" look.
"My mother was hysterical when she found out," said Ruel, the curious son who is now USC's offensive line coach. "She was like, 'Oh my God.' We were told never really to talk about it."
There were code words. Dad was a "businessman" who maybe worked for the "military" or the "government." In truth, for 15 years Pat Ruel II worked for the FBI.
And when you're 8 years old, as Pat III was when he found the cache of weapons, it's cool as hell.
"All the sudden," he said, "that's what you want to grow up to be."
Dad worked counter-espionage in North Carolina, interstate commerce in Texas, organized crime in Chicago. Son has worked 31 years for 12 different teams.
"We moved around quite a bit," Pat III said. "I guess he was training me for coaching."
You see, USC's line coach is what you call a lifer.
It's not that the guy can't hold a job. He is one of the best in the business. Pete Carroll had to do quite a selling job to get him away from the New York Giants.
He took him to lunch one day in Manhattan Beach during one of those sun-splashed SoCal days. Now Ruel and family live out there.
"The biggest challenge was (recruiting) Pat," Carroll said of offseason staff upheaval. "He did everything perfectly."
"Pete's like a beautiful woman, the closer you get, you better look out," Ruel said. "He is very charismatic. He can smile and make you feel like a million dollars."

Beyond the glory boys

Man-crushes aside, no, it's not sexy, this life in the trenches. To buy into this story you have to believe that offensive linemen are the smartest guys on the field -- that they know everything that is going on before it happens.
Coaches, players will tell you that because it is true.
There's a reason Matt Leinart has time to make a sandwich in the pocket. Or that Vince Young's jersey isn't dirty. Or that Reggie Bush averaged only 15½ carries per game this year yet won the Heisman.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=240 align=left><TBODY><TR><TD width=240> </TD><TD width=15></TD></TR><TR><TD width=240>Matt Leinart shows some love to tackle Matt Baker, whose dad is commish of the Arena League. (Getty Images) </TD><TD width=15></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>"What (the offensive line has) been able to do up front has been amazing," Bush said.
All five USC offensive linemen were at least Pac-10 honorable mention. Three starters returned from the 2004 team. Together they call themselves "The Rolling 300s," because of their average weight, 312.
Sophomore left tackle Sam Baker started his entire rookie season as a redshirt freshman in 2004. If there's nepotism, there's a career ahead. His dad, David, is commissioner of the Arena Football League.
Right guard Fred Matua is the self-described loudmouth. He almost got himself thrown out of a USC camp for high schoolers after physically and verbally whipping three opponents in one-on-one drills.
Left guard Deuce Lutui is an All-American. He also is the heaviest Trojan at 365. Son Inoke Luuaki Moeltau (means "return of a champion") was born the day after USC's national championship win in the 2005 Orange Bowl.
Tackle Winston Justice was suspended in 2004 for pulling a plastic gun on a student. He could have gone to the NFL, but Justice desperately wanted to come back to USC. He occupied his time working out at Wild Card Gym in Hollywood under the same trainer (Freddie Roach) who once worked with Mike Tyson.
When you're 6-6, 300, that's not always a good thing.
"More people want to try to fight you," said Justice, who might be the NFL's most highly rated offensive linemen playing in this game.
Texas has its own group, nicknamed the Trench Hogs. Massive Jonathan Scott (6-7, 310) is the All-American with his own music production company. Kasey Studdard was, well, the stud. His father, Dave, played in the NFL and instilled a never-say-cry attitude.
"Ever since Little League, I didn't cry," Kasey said. "If you get hurt, you're going to keep playing, I don't care. Unless you cannot walk you're going to keep playing. That's how I was raised.
"I cried once. I never cried after that. I landed on a shoe, lost my breath in Pop Warner football, came out when I was young. That was it for that." Which explains why when Studdard was flu-stricken the week of the Texas A&M game, he played.
"My dad brought me up you have to play no matter what, unless you can't walk," Studdard said.
Definitely not sexy.

Dad, the FBI and the road

This all fits because Ruel is an old offensive lineman. By old we mean Ruel played for Fran Curci in the early 1970s. That's four coaches prior to Howard Schnellenberger at Miami. Line play is what the 55-year-old knows best.
Yes, offensive linemen have scars of all sorts. In Ruel's first year as an assistant at Kansas in 1988, there were only 50-something players on scholarship. As a show of solidarity, the staff slept in tents near the practice field during fall drills.
Kansas went 1-10 that year. But by the time his old boss was playing out the string, the Jayhawks went 10-2 in 1995 and Ruel was a star.
And, yes, if you shorten it, Golden Ruel is really his name, a family name so unique it helped get him out of a ticket once while coaching at Northern Illinois. When his day came up came up in traffic court the judge remembered how "thorough" his father had been during his FBI career.
The judge admonished the officer and let Pat skate on a charge of driving with an expired tag. When your whole career you've just been passing through and the car is school-issued, how are you supposed to know?
You're not. Life is a whistle stop. It is a series of mortgages and babies and blocking sleds. It can't be helped if the judge, 20 years ago, then asked how Ruel's father was doing.
And the 8-year-old inside couldn't forget what it was like to want to be like dad. And the judge couldn't hide his embarrassment when the coach tells him that his dad had died.
See, the FBI was cool and all, but it didn't pay the bills -- especially with five kids in the house.
"I remember him saying, 'The government can't pay me enough to raise these kids,'" Ruel said.
So his dad became an insurance salesman. Not sexy, like an offensive line coach, but it paid the bills. Time passed and those five kids found out, dad was a hoot. He could name any state or world capital. He could quote Shakespeare.
"I said, 'Hey Dad, you're not big on passing on that photographic memory,'" P-III said. "'All the boys are saying we must have gotten mom's genes.'"
It's all funny as heck until 1976, when Dad was flying in a private plane with three businessmen. They were near restricted military airspace in South Florida. Somehow a student pilot in an F-14 clipped Pat Ruel's wing, taking out a mere 4-foot chunk.
"My dad tried to call 'mayday', but the plane was going down like a leaf," his son said sadly.
Nineteen seventy-six was at the beginning of Ruel's career. He was with his alma mater, Miami. The Canes beat Florida State that year 47-0 to start the season. The team gave Ruel the game ball.
"I'm glad it was Bowden's first year of coaching. I might have gotten a game ball, but it might have had a losing score in it," he joked.
No, this part of the Rose Bowl is not sexy. There is a special bond between offensive linemen. They are the smartest guys on the field.
Coaches, players -- and sons -- will tell you that because it's true.
"Everybody always thinks their father was the best father in the world. I'm no exception. I thought my dad was the best. He taught me a lot of life lessons that were very valuable," Ruel said.
It's weird. Ruel's daughter Sabra wanted to forsake the Southern California lifestyle and go away to school at Wisconsin, of all places. The cold, the wind, the snow.
Ruel started to ask why and then remembered his whistle-stop career.
All that moving around with dad, the FBI agent?
"What it did is cause me to have a sense of adventure," he said. "I was never intimidated by a new environment or new places.
"My dad taught me every day should be enjoyed."
http://www.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/9129380

[TSKCoug]

I would have liked to see Pete go pro too!!! This forever playing for second place just sucks!

[bukitillidie]

Wondering when was Pete Carroll on the Coaching staff at Ohio State and what specific role he had...thanks...

[Dryden]

http://usctrojans.collegesports.com/...ll_pete00.html

Part of the Earle Bruce coaching tree going back to Iowa State

Carroll began his coaching career at the college level, serving as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Pacific, for 3 years (1974-76), working with the wide receivers and secondary. He then spent a season as a graduate assistant working with the secondary at Arkansas (1977) under Lou Holtz as the Razorbacks won the 1978 Orange Bowl, and then a season each as an assistant in charge of the secondary at Iowa State (1978) under Earle Bruce (the Cyclones played in the 1978 Hall of Fame Bowl) and at Ohio State (1979) under Bruce. That Buckeye squad lost to USC in the 1980 Rose Bowl. He next spent 3 seasons (1980-82) as the defensive coordinator and secondary coach at North Carolina State, then returned to Pacific in 1983 as the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator.

[gbearbuck]

Dryden,

You better add a third trophy to that sig...

[Dryden]

Originally Posted by gbearbuck

Dryden,

You better add a third trophy to that sig...

... working on it.

[kinch]

From this weeks Ask CFN: (http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2...FN/Ask_CFN.htm)

Because this is recruiting season, I always hear certain coaches being referred to as "Masterful Recruiters" This might be a dumb question, but what makes a coach a "Masterful Recruiter?" Is it non-stop worker, someone who is lucky to coach in a state loaded with talent (Florida, California, Texas,) or is it a Mack Brown-like charm and comfortableness some coaches have? - Ernie
"About to enjoy another MPC or Music City Bowl," Charlottesville, VA

A: Not a dumb question at all since I’m sort of with you on your tact. My grandmother could recruit at Texas, Florida or USC. I’m not sold that someone’s a “masterful recruiter” just because he gets a lot of five-star guys. I like the coaches who fill holes quickly and pluck the mid-range talents who turn into big-time players. Who had Steve Slaton on their top lists of talents? He wasn’t even West Virginia’s most heralded running back recruit last year (that honor belongs to Jason Gwaltney.) Wisconsin and Texas Tech are other examples of programs that do a masterful job of getting players to fit a system. In my world, the best recruiters, at least among the head coaches, are the ones who can sell early playing time, and that comes with a track record. If Pete Carroll tells a recruit he could start as a true freshman, you know he’s right.

(Emphasis added.)

[ohiostate=life]

"I like the coaches who fill holes quickly and pluck the mid-range talents who turn into big-time players."

This is what you would find in the Encyclopedia under Jim Tressel. Along with a couple trophies.