Well the NCAA finally dropped the hammer today on the USC football program, which included a loss of 30 scholarships and a two-year ban from the postseason. That can’t set too well with newly-hired coach Lane Kiffin, who will certainly face some pretty big challenges in the next few years. But while most people are focusing on the the future of the program and how it will fare, perhaps the biggest part of this equation has to do with current Seahawks’ head coach Pete Carroll.

Carroll left USC this past off-season to take the job in Seattle, and most were a little surprised when he did this. After all, he had clearly moved away from his love for the professional game, and had turned the USC program into one of the most consistent in the entire country in terms of winning. You could pretty much expect USC to win 10 games every year, and after they did that, they would send a handful of players into the NFL Draft.

But now that the NCAA has released their findings on Reggie Bush’s ineligibility, some are wondering whether or not Carroll new what was coming. There’s no definitive answer here, and only something that we can speculate on. You can make the argument that Seattle wasn’t exactly one of the high profile jobs that Carroll could have had in the NFL, but it’s west coast location certainly had something to do with his decision. It was familiar territory, so in that sense, it seemed like a pretty good idea.

However, there’s no doubt that USC fans and college football fans are going to look at Carroll a little differently now. Most will see it as him leaving before the storm, and dropping the mess off to someone else (though I’m not particularly upset that Kiffin is the one that has to deal with it). You can say all you want about how it’s not fair, but that’s just how it works. If the NCAA couldn’t find sufficient evidence in that specific year, then they could do nothing about it then. It took five years for them to figure it all out, and there’s not a whole lot they can do now.

While most of these findings focused on Bush, it’s hard to believe that the NCAA hadn’t found some other questionable things during the Carroll tenure at USC. A two-year postseason ban is something that will affect this program more than anything, as new recruits certainly won’t be wanting to go play for a team that can’t play in a bowl game, or for a national championship. And that’s what the USC program has prided itself on in the last decade or so. National championships.

The NCAA clearly sent a message to the college football world, as the penalty was harsher than most expected it to be. With USC being the high-profile program that it is, it’s clear that the NCAA is pulling no punches when it comes to things like this. The speculation has been there for a while now, but now we finally know. Bush was ineligible, and now USC will have to pay for it.

But I’m interested to know this: what is your opinion of Carroll now? Do you view it as him knowing what was going to happen before-hand, which led to him jetting to the Seahawks? Or was it simply a step forward in his career?

(Picture Source)



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