Trojan Force

Here was history brought back to life last Saturday night, as a 52-year-old coach who was drummed out of the NFL for having too much enthusiasm revived a storied program that had long had too little. Venerable Los Angeles Coliseum was nearly full, awash in cardinal and gold again, rocking under a cloudless sky as USC and third-year coach Pete Carroll imposed themselves on the chaotic national championship race with a 43-16 win over sixth-ranked Washington State. College Football Nation now looks west and computers reboot as the pollsters recalculate the status of an old, familiar name at last back in the mix.

There was a time when cold autumn Saturdays in much of the country were warmed by images beamed from California, as games played in postcard sunshine or warm twilight sent ripples through the national rankings. No Saturday was more memorable than the one in 1974 when USC, led by tailback Anthony Davis, erased a 24-0 deficit and stormed past Notre Dame 55-24, humiliating the Irish in 17 minutes of bloody, captivating theater. From 1972 through '79 the Trojans finished No. 1 or No. 2 five times, ensuring that the Pac-8 (and then the Pac-10, after the league expanded in 1978) always had a voice in deciding the national championship.

But after that there was silence. In the 24 years since USC shared the national championship with Alabama in 1978, the Pac-10 has only won half of another tide, in 1991, when Washington split it with Miami. Championships have been sprinkled from Oklahoma and Nebraska to Florida, Florida State and Miami, to Tennessee and Alabama, to Michigan and Ohio State, but the West Coast has been a virtual black hole. Since the formation of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, only the Pac-10 among the six power conferences has not sent a team to the national title game. The Pac-10 became a late-night novelty, its teams playing high-scoring shootouts and, like cannibals, devouring each other in a stream of upsets that ruined title chances. "Exciting football," says former Arizona coach Dick Tomey, "but no dominant team."

Until Saturday. USC's rout of Washington State—combined with previously unbeaten Miami's 31-7 loss at Virginia Tech (page 52)—thrust the 8-1 Trojans into the heart of the BCS madness, a confusing, unpredictable scramble to find an opponent for unbeaten and seemingly unbeatable Oklahoma. This latest shakeup left USC at No. 2 in both the AP poll and the BCS standings—in line for a Sugar Bowl berth. The Trojans' players, under orders from their coach to ignore the possibilities, are seduced by them nonetheless. "I was just thinking," junior defensive tackle Shaun Cody said after Saturday night's win, "it would be nice to test ourselves against somebody from back in the East or the Midwest, if you know what I mean."

On a midweek evening earlier this season Carroll sat in semidarkness in a meeting room on the second floor of Heritage Hall (where visitors are greeted in the lobby by a display of USC's five Heisman trophies). In Carroll's right hand was a clicker to control the tape of the day's practice, in his left a tankard of Mountain Dew. "Once that kicks in, he's here until everybody else is gone," says Mark Jackson, director of football operations. The office suite buzzed as assistant coaches talked on their phones with blue-chip recruits pledging their services to the rebuilt Trojans. Carroll rose every few minutes to chat up a kid or close an informal deal (recruits can't sign letters of intent until February), and he came back cackling, fueled by caffeine and commitments. "This is what SC can be," he said, "as dominant as parity will allow. Ain't no SCs in the NFL."

Three years ago USC was scarcely a shell of its former self. From 1998 through 2000, under coach Paul Hackett, the Trojans went 19-18, played in one bowl game and failed to finish in the Top 25—the final, embarrassing stage of a two-decade decline. The 2000 team was 5-7 overall and 2-6 in the Pac-10. "The worst team in USC history," says Petros Papadakis, a Trojans tailback that year. He's now a Los Angeles radio host and sideline reporter. " Hackett had no idea what USC football was about." Recruits from the fertile L.A. basin were turning elsewhere. "We were begging players to come here," says Trojans assistant coach Ed Orgeron, a holdover from Hackett's staff.

Athletic director Mike Garrett (the Trojans' first Heisman winner, in 1965) fired Hackett in November 2000. He offered the job to Dennis Erickson, who had won two national titles at Miami before moving on to the Seattle Seahawks and then Oregon State, but Erickson turned it down. Garrett also talked to Oregon coach Mike Bellotti. Weeks passed as what had once been one of the most desirable jobs in football, at any level, sat vacant. Eventually Garrett listened to his assistant Daryl Gross, who had been a scout for the New York Jets when Carroll was an assistant with that team. "Here's what I remember," Gross told Garrett. "People fall asleep in football meetings. Nobody fell asleep in Pete's. He was alive."

Carroll's career, however, seemed all but dead. He'd gotten his first NFL job in 1984, at the age of 31, coaching the Buffalo Bills' defensive backs. Over the next 10 years with the Bills, Minnesota Vikings and Jets, he established himself as one of the game's sharpest defensive minds. "The schemes he ran were ahead of most teams'," says Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan. When the Jets fired Bruce Coslet after the 1993 season, Carroll replaced him, went 6-10 and was also fired. He then reestablished his credentials in two years as defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers before the New England Patriots hired him to replace Bill Parcells as coach. The Pats went 27-21 in three seasons and twice made the playoffs, but Parcells had taken the team to the Super Bowl in '96, and Carroll's performance didn't measure up. Again he got canned.

Carroll left the NFL with his reputation as a strategist intact—"He taught us a lot about the game, not just defense but offense, too," says Jets linebacker Marvin Jones—but with a damning label: rah-rah guy. "He was very enthusiastic, and his enthusiasm didn't sit well with everybody," says Patriots cornerback Ty Law. "He treated you like a man, and if you couldn't play for Pete, it was more your problem than his. But some guys need to have their job threatened every day."

Even now Carroll bristles at the notion that he was too college for professional players. "It's all a matter of control," says Carroll. "If the [front office] gives you control, my style works. I was pissed off that it didn't work, because it should have."