Trojans Talking to Holtz

Heat rises. Mike Garrett should realize this before he and all of USC are engulfed in it.

The criticism once firmly rooted on the shoulders of John Robinson has slowly drifted up around Garrett and toward the reputation of an entire football program.

The longer Garrett leaves his coach dangling like a chipped ornament from a dying tree, the more people will start to wonder whether it isn’t the athletic director’s office that should be cleaned out.

With leaks springing from all sides of his top-secret plan to find a better football coach, Garrett has two choices.

* Buy out Robinson’s contract and start a nationwide search.

* Retain Robinson because he doesn’t think he’ll find anything better, make him hire new assistant coaches, and--wink, wink--claim that the problem has been solved.

Whatever Garrett does, he should do it now.

It is one thing to fudge on your promise to evaluate your coach after the season by quietly chewing on it for the ensuing three weeks.

It is quite another to have everyone discover that, during those three weeks, you have desperately been trying to hire Lou Holtz.

This latest news makes Garrett’s first option far more reasonable than his second.

Bad enough that John Robinson now officially knows the boss is trying to replace him. By the end of today, the USC players and recruits will know it, and that is where Garrett’s stumbling may have left himself with no choice at all.

With Garrett hacking away at the edges, Robinson has become a cardboard cutout.

As much as they love their coach, it is tough for any kid to run August sprints for a guy who has less influence than they do.

If Robinson is retained, Garrett will be telling the university and its supporters that they should embrace what he will not embrace.

What will that say about Garrett?

What will that say about USC?

Not that it couldn’t happen. There might be a big press shebang early this week, and Robinson could step to the podium with an entire new coaching staff and new smiles.

But the world will know better.

Keep a coach, lose respect. That is the equation that Garrett has carelessly drawn while calculating USC’s future.

USC despises the other option, the messiness of firing a popular figure and leaving the football coach’s office vacant for more than a few hours. But they can look at it another way--Robinson has given them no choice.

If he had quit after the UCLA loss, he would have taken the high road.

But when he told his players he would be returning--despite any assurances from Garrett--it was clear he wanted to play dirty.

And dirty he will get. During a time when he could have been settling into a career as a USC statesman, he finds himself being hounded through the mud by visions of an old Notre Dame rival.

Whatever money Robinson will make by hanging on, has it been worth this? The goodwill he has built among supporters by being the ultimate Trojan, is hanging around for one more year worth tearing that apart?

If you don’t think USC won’t go through this again next year, then you must think a couple of those new assistant coaches will be named Cowher and Parcells.

If Trojans can avoid choking on their pride, they would realize that Holtz would be a good choice.

He would restore lost discipline, not to mention a running game. The team would be tough again, and visible again.

When the Holtz rumors began last month, Pac-10 coaches told NFL scouts that they feared his hiring. They saw no need to startle a USC program that is good and asleep.

Holtz, though, probably will turn it down. He wants to coach the Indianapolis Colts. He doesn’t want to live somewhere that his enthusiasm could be slowed by traffic. And he is openly worried that USC would not allow him the sizable budget required to convince top assistant coaches to move to Los Angeles.

But there are other candidates.

Emmitt Thomas, a former Garrett teammate in Kansas City and the fine defensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles, is ready.

Jeff Fisher, former Trojan and coach of the Tennessee Oilers, would be a natural.

The list goes on and on.

You want a former USC assistant who helped school Joe Montana? Take Paul Hackett of the Chiefs.

How about a former USC assistant who understands offense and discipline? Try Norv Turner, coach of the Washington Redskins?

Or how about this scenario: Wait until the day after the Rose Bowl, show up at a Pasadena hotel and announce that you have hired Washington State’s Mike Price.

At this stage, there is no shortage of candidates, only decisive athletic directors.