When the USC Trojans flew north to take on the Washington Huskies this past fall, they looked across the sidelines and saw a couple of former USC assistants — UW head coach Steve Sarkisian and defensive coordinator Nick Holt, both seven-year veterans of the Trojans’ coaching staff.
When USC looks north to Seattle next fall, will they see Pete Carroll walking the sidelines at Qwest Field? ESPN’s Chris Mortensen is reporting that Carroll, the highly-successful head coach at USC, is reportedly a candidate to become the Seahawks new head coach. The names of Tony Dungy, Bill Cower and Jon Gruden have also been tossed around as everybody scrambles to get the story after finding out that the Hawks had fired Jim Mora earlier on Friday.
I’m a little surprised the Seahawks didn’t give Mora another season, but the man who was named to be Mike Holmgren’s successor back in 2008 didn’t have a very good season. It wasn’t the record (5-11) so much as the lopsided losses late in the season that did him in.
Carroll makes sense from the standpoint that USC could get hit with some serious penalties by the USC for violations regarding past players such as Reggie Bush and McKnight. He’s also got four years of NFL head coaching experience under his belt — a year with the Jets and three with New England. He was 33-31 overall. No doubt, he’s a better coach now than he was during his previous NFL days. He’s charismatic and has enough connections that he should be able to put together a formidable coaching staff.
From the outside, he looks like he’d be a good hire to me.
But what if you could entice Cower or Dungy out of retirement? What if you could lure Gruden away from his MNF gig?
Remember, money doesn’t seem to be an obstacle with the Seahawks. The Seattle Times reported that owner Paul Allen made the decision to get rid of Mora, who still has three years and $11 million left on his contract.
If anybody can lure Cower or Dungy out of retirement, it’s Paul Allen.
That said, who would you rather have coaching the team: Cower, Dungy, Gruden or Carroll?
ESPN also reported that the Seahawks asked Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to interview for the job but he turned them down, feeling the Hawks were only trying to satisfy the league’s requirements to interview a minority candidate.
Comments
Post a Comment