Trojans Showed Strength a Year Ahead of Schedule

Pete Carroll got the expected postgame handshake from Michigan Coach Lloyd Carr after USC won the Rose Bowl, but Carroll said Friday that he also got a surprise.

“He said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve just won the national championship,’ ” Carroll said. “I thought it was very gracious.”

Carroll and his top-ranked Trojans must wait until late Sunday night, after the Sugar Bowl has been played and the final ballots in the Associated Press media poll have been tabulated, to officially stamp themselves winners of at least a share of the national title.

But after a night of celebrating his team’s dominating 28-14 victory that capped a 12-1 season, Carroll called the Trojans’ achievement the high point of his coaching career.

“This is the best by far,” he said during a conference call with beat reporters. “We take such great pride in the fact of taking the clay and molding it. We’ve had a vision that we wanted to see it become and it’s happened.

“It was just an extraordinary event and outcome.”

Carroll, however, sounded a bit sad, as if he wanted the season and the fun to go on.

“It’s interesting that it all happens and then it’s over. It’s done,” Carroll said. “It seems off to be apart from the team.”

Carroll, who was hired at USC before the 2001 season, is 29-9 in three seasons -- 23-3 in the last two, including victories in the Orange and Rose bowl games.

He said he was just beginning to process what the Trojans achieved this season with a team that many thought was a year away from competing for a national title. If USC maintains its status atop the AP poll, the national championship will be the Trojans’ ninth and their first since 1978.

“I’m still working through it and having fun with it,” Carroll said. “You play with it and measure it and see how it all fits.

“I don’t know that there is going to be a moment when it hits.... This is a thing you get to enjoy for a long time. People wear it differently.”

Calling the Rose Bowl “a real typical game for us,” Carroll said he was nonetheless surprised by the Trojans’ ability to pressure Michigan quarterback John Navarre from the outside. Cornerback Will Poole recorded two of the Trojans’ season-high nine sacks. Linebacker Dallas Sartz and cornerbacks Marcell Allmond and Ronald Nunn each had one.

Carroll said the game played out almost exactly as he’d envisioned.

“It was kind of like being there a second time in my mind,” he said. “It’s really very interesting to see it happen kind of in slow motion.

“So often, games are long and drawn out. This one wasn’t.”

Looking back on the season, Carroll said the biggest factor in the Trojans’ success was the consistency of quarterback Matt Leinart, a redshirt sophomore who was replacing Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer. The emergence of freshmen running backs LenDale White and Reggie Bush, and the solid veteran performances of receivers Keary Colbert and Mike Williams, also were keys, he said.

Carroll called USC’s victory over Arizona State the most significant game of the season for the Trojans because they bounced back from their triple-overtime loss at California and started to rush the ball effectively.

Trojan players and coaches are not scheduled to meet again as a group until Jan. 12.

On Monday, Carroll and his assistants leave for a national coaches’ convention in Orlando, Fla., where Carroll will be a featured speaker Tuesday.

Carroll said he was in no hurry to name a replacement for linebacker coach Nick Holt, who is leaving to become head coach at Idaho. He will meet with junior defensive end Kenechi Udeze in the next few weeks to talk about the All-American’s pending decision on making himself available for the NFL draft.

Carroll said he began looking ahead to next season during bowl preparations.

USC opens against Virginia Tech in the Black Coaches Assn. Classic and also will play nonconference games against Brigham Young, Colorado State and Notre Dame. The Trojans miss Oregon again in Pacific 10 Conference play.

The Trojans are expected to begin the season at or near the top of the polls, but Carroll said winning another national championship was not his main concern.

“Even in the locker room [after the Rose Bowl], we didn’t talk about repeats,” Carroll said. “We know we have a great group coming back. We’re not going anywhere. We’re not going to change anything.

“It won’t be about goals and big statements. It will be about getting back to hard work and work ethic. It’s the same question I had about this year’s team. Will we be able to recapture the work ethic?”