Pete Carroll

We didn't want him. You didn't want him. "I didn't want him," admitted a USC booster Monday, standing on the sideline of Howard Jones Field, watching with a smile as the Trojans sparred for their national-title bout with Michigan. "They announced the hire, and I thought, that's it?" As the raucous Pete Carroll bandwagon careens noisily toward history this week -- backslaps for everyone! -- it's important to remember how it looked when it started. The train was a rickshaw, and those 2 million people were two. Daryl Gross was pulling, and Mike Garrett was hanging on for dear life.

Former USC football Coach Pete Carroll said he expects NFL owners to sit up and take notice of the sale of the Dodgers for $2 billion, noting that it should tell them something about the value of the Los Angeles market. "Oh, man, they've got to love that," said Carroll, now coach of the Seattle Seahawks, during the NFC coaches' breakfast at the annual league meetings. "That's a new day. That's a big marker. That's not just something-point-something, it's $2 billion. That's a big number.

Pete Carroll jumps into the scrum at USC football practice, sometimes diving over a goal-line pile as if he were a 22-year-old tailback leaping for the end zone. Carroll, age 5, jumped over a tower of pillows in a living room, diving for the imaginary end zone if only he could evade the hulking form of his 10-year-old brother. It is September, his USC football team is playing at Cal, and Carroll has left 25 tickets for the guys -- for Skip Corsini and Jim Peters, for Henry Diaz and Ken Roby -- for his football pals, his basketball buddies, his baseball compatriots, for the gang from Redwood High in Larkspur, Calif.

During the compressed free-agency period last summer, it looked as if Matt Leinart would be reunited in Seattle with Pete Carroll, his coach from USC. Houston made an eleventh-hour pitch to the quarterback, though, and convinced Leinart to stay with the Texans. The Seahawks felt burned (although their signing of Tarvaris Jackson sent a discouraging message to Leinart), and the situation didn't work out as planned for the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, either. Leinart appeared in two games in 2011 after Matt Schaub suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.

Ben and J-Lo couldn't do it. Tom and Nicole couldn't do it. Even Eisner and Ovitz couldn't do it. Can Pete and Norm do it? The fragile ground that often collapses under the weight of Hollywood unions has not yet crumbled beneath the cleats of its latest power couple. But the groaning and creaking is real. The revered USC football coach and his respected offensive coordinator are celebrating their fourth anniversary next week with a national championship date night against Oklahoma.

During the compressed free-agency period last summer, it looked as if Matt Leinart would be reunited in Seattle with Pete Carroll, his coach from USC. Houston made an eleventh-hour pitch to the quarterback, though, and convinced Leinart to stay with the Texans. The Seahawks felt burned (although their signing of Tarvaris Jackson sent a discouraging message to Leinart), and the situation didn't work out as planned for the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, either. Leinart appeared in two games in 2011 after Matt Schaub suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.

Pete Carroll, who led USC to seven Pacific 10 Conference titles and two national championships, will resign his position at the university and accept the coaching job with the Seattle Seahawks. Trojans players and coaches learned of the news via text message from an assistant coach, The Times' Gary Klein has learned. Seahawks chief executive officer Tod Leiweke was in town on Sunday to finalize the deal. Carroll will take over as coach while the organization begins its search for a new general manager.

Pete Carroll has been gone from USC for two seasons, but he still doesn't miss a chance to criticize the NCAA -- even in its own backyard. Carroll, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is in Indianapolis, home of NCAA headquarters, for the NFL scouting combine. Mike Sando of ESPN.com writes that Carroll had the quote of the day from the combine. "A reporter from New York noted that players pointed to Carroll and the Jets' Rex Ryan as the coaches they most enjoyed playing under," Sando wrote.

After a closer look, USC's exhaustive 2 1/2 -hour search for a new football coach makes perfect sense. To meet USC's standards, Mike Garrett considered five people: Bernie Madoff -- Really unavailable. Ex-Gov. Blagojevich -- "Celebrity Apprentice" prefers the East Coast. Pete Rose -- Not enough games to wager on. Amy Winehouse -- visa problems. Then the brainstorm of Lane Kiffin. I can hear Mike thinking, "He knows the way to the Coliseum, will blow off Tennessee in a heartbeat and has no character or class.

With tears in his eyes, a USC student announced that after attending classes for four years and receiving his bachelor's degree, he was leaving campus to pursue his life's work. At which point, his beloved professor publicly scorned him for it. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing, apparently, if you are Pete Carroll. Everything, perhaps, if you are Mark Sanchez.

Pete Carroll has been gone from USC for two seasons, but he still doesn't miss a chance to criticize the NCAA -- even in its own backyard. Carroll, the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, is in Indianapolis, home of NCAA headquarters, for the NFL scouting combine. Mike Sando of ESPN.com writes that Carroll had the quote of the day from the combine. "A reporter from New York noted that players pointed to Carroll and the Jets' Rex Ryan as the coaches they most enjoyed playing under," Sando wrote.

USC receiver Marqise Lee and running back D.J. Morgan are accustomed to catching passes. Trojans defensive backs Nickell Robey and Tony Burnett have been trained to knock them down. On Saturday, the quartet will make passes — by handing off a baton — when they compete together in the 400-meter relay in the USC track team's season-opening outdoor competition at the Claremont Relays. It's the first time since the early 2000s that USC football players have migrated en masse to the track, restoring a tradition that once helped the Trojans win multiple conference championships in the spring sport.

Back when he was USC's coach, Pete Carroll had high hopes of recruiting Tim Tebow. Tebow and his father visited Los Angeles and went to the 2004 UCLA-USC game at the Rose Bowl, where Reggie Bush punctuated a 66-yard touchdown run with a flip into the end zone. "They were phenomenal," recalled Tebow, who was hosted by Mark Sanchez, Patrick Turner and Jeff Byers on his visit. "It was exciting. It was a good trip. " That's what Carroll thought. So he was optimistic when he made a trip to the Tebow family farm outside Jacksonville, Fla., bringing assistants Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian with him. "Everything was going great, and we were real excited about the home visit," Carroll said.

Unbuckling the mailbag: Question: Is Mike Sherman now a candidate for the UCLA job? Jared Gibson Answer: Yes, have him get in line behind Pee-wee Herman. If UCLA tried to hire Mike Sherman, recently fired by Texas A&M, Bruins Athletic Director Dan Guerrero would have to make the announcement in a Sherman tank. Q: Why are you looking so far away? U-DUB Husky Coach Steve Sarkisian is perfect. He was born just five minutes away from UCLA. He coached at USC and will be a natural rival to Kiffin.

Rick Neuheisel is reviewing video of Oregon at play Monday afternoon on the office wall opposite his desk, with one more game to coach while reporters and UCLA administrators gather elsewhere to dwell on his firing. As optimistic as he has been every day on the job at UCLA, he says there is another game to win, quoting the characters from "Dumb and Dumber": "So you're telling me there's a chance. " As gung-ho as he remains even after being advised he's been a failure here, he says, "I'm not going to change now just because Dan Guerrero says I've failed.

Every so often, Rick Majerus comes to town and reminds us of what might have been. Right now, he is coach of the St. Louis University Billikens. If they have any sense in St. Louis, they are counting their blessings, and not just the basketball fans. This is a man as accomplished as they come in his sport. It is also a man as complicated as they come in life. His basketball team is in Anaheim this weekend to play in the 76 Classic, a creation of ESPN, as is much of the sports landscape these days.

USC Coach Pete Carroll is not backing down. Not much, anyway. A day after his agitated appearance at quarterback Mark Sanchez's news conference, during which the junior announced he would make himself available for the NFL draft, Carroll stood by his tone and his explanation of why Sanchez was making a mistake by not exhausting his eligibility. But he also said he might have left something out.

USC football Coach Pete Carroll confirmed Thursday that Pete Rodriguez, Alex Gibbs and other coaches with NFL experience have served as consultants during his eight seasons with the Trojans, but he denied NCAA rules were broken.

Separation Sunday is in the books. The Green Bay Packers separated themselves from the top of the NFL, emerging from the weekend at 6-0 and the league's only undefeated team. The Indianapolis Colts separated themselves in the other direction, dropping to a league-worst 0-6. St. Louis is 0-5 and Miami, which plays at the New York Jets on Monday, is 0-4. And then there's the separation that had millions of viewers rewinding their DVRs — the quarrelsome quarantine of coaches Jim Schwartz of Detroit and Jim Harbaugh of San Francisco.

From San Francisco -- It was just two years ago that USC was coached by Pete Carroll in this same stadium — his final game. Now Trojans football is nowhere near as much fun. Maybe Carroll's act had become tired with the NCAA weighing heavy on the future of USC football and he had to go, but how about a sign of life as things start anew? Where's the killer instinct, as much a trademark in the Carroll era as his relentless credo to compete? How about Lane Kiffin coming across as more than just an offensive cheerleader and coordinator, as his title is "head coach.