Carroll and Kelly Leave Bad Taste

Every great coach needs a new challenge, a new arena to test themselves in. However very rarely do coaches seek these new challenges in an acceptable manner. The reigning national champions are a prime example, Nick Saban wasn’t exactly procured in ideal circumstances. The last two months have seen two coaching changes that have left a certain foul smell in the mouth. One was much more predictable than the other, but both gave the departing teams a feeling of disappointment, resentment and victimisation. Firstly, in December and January, Brian Kelly cut ties with Cincinnati to move to Notre Dame. This resulted in Bearcats galore voicing their unhappiness and their former coach. This weekend then produced the mother of all coaching shocks; USC Trojans head coach Pete Carroll quit Southern California for a job in the Pacific Northwest. The Seattle Seahawks and the NFL have gained and the Trojans have lost. But what happened with these two coaches and their controversial job switches?

Coach Kelly is perhaps the one with the best reasoning. The last two programmes he has coached have improved over his reign, Central Michigan improved from 4-7 to 9-4 over the three years Brian Kelly was there. Cincinnati went from a 10-3 team in his first year finishing as 12-1 team in his last (12-0 with Kelly as coach). It would be perfectly reasonable for Kelly to say he took these programmes as far as he could, that he had decided on a new challenge. This would fit with his recent employment history, improves the Chippewas and then the Bearcats and now moves onto more traditionally significant programmes. If this is the case then, so long as the Irish are winning, Kelly should be in South Bend for 20 years. But will that be enough for Brian Kelly? At Cincinnati there was the opportunity to create his own tradition, to raise a new power to national prominence. Doing that would have been all about Brian Kelly, it would have been his programme, his players and his legacy. Now to achieve that is a challenge. Undefeated seasons, regardless of their increasing regularity are still special things, his Bearcats has achieved it in only his third full year as coach and were going to a BCS bowl. At Notre Dame Kelly will be stalked by the ghosts of Rockne, Leahy, Holtz and the eleven national championships. Maybe Brian Kelly likes a challenge but, in comparison to Cincy, is Notre Dame with all of it’s resources really that much of challenge?

The Seattle Seahawks and the NFL however is a challenge, one that Pete Carroll has faced before. It is logical that Carroll would take the next big step in his career, after all he had spent nine years at USC, and yet that’s what sticks in the throat for Trojans fans. Carroll rode SoCal hard for those nine years and the teams he produced were astronomically good, that’s why they achieved more than just being a programme, it became a dynasty. And yet, just when that dynasty appears at it’s weakest, losing more games than they had in almost a decade, Carroll jumps ship. Not only does Pete Carroll leave the team at it’s least secure he leaves as the behemoth of NCAA discipline is set to descend on the school. The last nine years have provided plenty of sound bites from Carroll listing reasons he wanted to stay at SC and didn’t want to join the NFL ranks. What spurred his decision? Was the negativity of USC’s impending situation? Or was it all that is being offered by the Seahawks (two first round picks, bottomless money in an uncapped year, a weak division)? Only Pete Carroll knows exactly why he lest his creation to the NCAA feeding frenzy but nine years ago he made the Trojans into a Pac-10 juggernaut, he is leaving them as the 5th best team in the conferences after eight years of domination. Maybe next decade the cycle will come round again.

One move changed the landscape of college football, after all their searching it now appears Notre Dame has a competent college coach. It is also ironic that with Carroll’s departure the Irish may, at last, be prepared to overturn the contemporary strangle hold the Trojans had on them. Both will set about rebuilding their new teams, one through the NFL draft, the other through hard recruiting. The moral of the Kelly and Carroll stories, especially if you’re a Trojan or Bearcat? The grass always seems greener on the other side, even in Washington and Indiana.