buckiprof: Hey buddy, it is nice to see you here as well.
Oh8ch: Regarding the "#1 guy" situation regarding Pete Carroll, I only have these observations to make. If you go to the Owen Field board at OU they believe that Stoops should have the part to the sequel of The Passion of the Christ. If you travel to the LSU board, their fans believe that Saban has miraculous powers second only to those of Father Pius, and so on. Whichever site you visit, provided that it is a winning program, the football coach is revered, idolized and protected. In other words, we all love our guy, right?
I personally believe that Pete Carroll is a human being, a man if you will, who also happens to be the coach of the USC football team. I don't know whether is more or less ethical and judicious than other men.
I met him, briefly, after the end of the spring football game just a couple of weeks ago. He was very cordial, well-spoken and appeared to enjoy being around fans.
Did he say to some players that they were his #1 guy at their position? did he over-sell the program to some recruits? I honestly don't know, but I seriously doubted. Remember, these accusations have been made by guys who eventually elected to attend other schools. The two scholies that were rescinded included a guy who was accused of selling drugs and a LB/FB who kept enjuries from the school application. All his players swear by him. Everybody that is close to the program, including the snakes who report for the LA Times, have found absolutely nothing detrimental or controversial to report on this guy and if there were skeletons in the closet, they wouldn't remain there for a long time in LA. On his third and a half year on the job, he has had no defections from scholarship athletes he recruited other than a couple of walk-ons who wouldn't have made the team anyway. He has red-shirted players who were ranked inside the top 10 (#1 guys) in the country at their positions and no one has complained.
However, I confess that if he told Ginn that he was the #1 guy at his position, he only told the truth because we don't have any DBs the caliber of Teddy on our team. I don't want to write a novel about Pete, but you asked me the question.
Finally, I think that Carroll has re-established and rivitalized a moribund and embarrassing football program, winning 1/2 of a NC with 3 starting Olinemen of which only one was drafted, three oversized safeties playing LBs, two suspect DBs and a questionable kicker. He was a modest NFL coach but he appears to be a very good CF coach. He is no better than Tressel, Saban, Richt, Stoops and others. He just plays a different type of football that is more condusive and palatable to the Los Angeles clientele.
Sorry for the very long post.