Pete Carroll is returning to the place where he became a college football icon. But Carroll’s second stint with the USC Trojans will not be as a coach.
Carroll is aiming to teach a course at USC in the spring, he told a local Seattle radio station Tuesday. Carroll, whose 14-year tenure as Seattle Seahawks head coach ended in January, said he is “looking forward” to the new opportunity.
“It’s gonna be a really exciting endeavor when it’s all finalized,” Carroll said.
After being fired by the New England Patriots in 1999, Carroll revived his coaching career in Los Angeles after arriving at USC in 2001, restoring the Trojans to the top of college football during his nine years there.
The Trojans won seven Pac-12 championships and have claimed two national titles from Carroll’s tenure there, including a win in the BCS National Championship Game after the 2004 season. Three players — quarterbacks Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, and running back Reggie Bush — won the Heisman Trophy under Carroll.
Carroll then went on to coach the Seahawks, winning Seattle’s first and only Super Bowl title after the 2013 season. The Seahawks reached the playoffs 10 times in Carroll’s tenure, highlighted by back-to-back NFC Championships in 2013 and 2014. Though Carroll still expressed a desire to continue coaching, the Seahawks moved him to an advisory role in January and hired former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald to replace him as head coach.
Carroll does not appear set to have any involvement with the current USC football team under head coach Lincoln Riley as the school moves to the Big Ten conference. Carroll said Tuesday that he is doing some consulting for teams “outside of football” but refused to go into details. He also recently visited U.S. military troops at a base in Kuwait.
“I’m doing just fine,” said the 72-year-old Carroll. “There’s a lot of things going on that I’m excited about.”
However, Carroll said he hasn’t had much contact with the new Seahawks coaching staff outside of a brief chance encounter with Macdonald in the parking lot of the team facility.
“I have not had much to do with them in any way,” Carroll said. “I’m just watching the games a little bit when I see them on TV. I’m not paying much attention to it; it just feels like the right thing to do to let them go. I don’t really have any opinion [on the new Seahawks coaches] other than I know they’re really hard-working and it’s a really smart group of guys. They have a good group around them to build on. …. I’m purposefully staying away from it and not visiting with them at all.”
Carroll is also not formally involved with the new Washington Huskies coaching staff, which includes his son, Brennan Carroll, as offensive coordinator.
“There’s no role there but being a friend to [head coach] Jedd [Fisch] and a dad to Brennan,” Carroll said.
Brennan Carroll is not the only son of a famous coach on Fisch’s Washington staff, as the defensive coordinator is Steve Belichick, son of the former Patriots coach. Bill Belichick has been seen around Washington’s practices and has made his desire clear to return as an NFL head coach next season. When Carroll was asked by former Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin on the radio show whether he would like to continue coaching, he demurred.
“I could coach tomorrow,” Carroll said. “I’m physically in the best shape I’ve been in in a long time. I’m ready to do all the activities that I’m doing and feeling really good about it. … I’m not desiring it at this point. This isn’t the coaching season. We’ll see what happens. I’m not really waiting on it at all. I’m going ahead.
“If it’s been 40-something years, 48 years or whatever coaching, and that’s it, I’ll feel OK about that.”
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