Pete Carroll: Goodbye Southern California, Hello Seattle

If Pete Carroll plans to return to the NFL via the Seattle Seahawks’ coaching vacancy, it will not be because Pete wants to prove he is better than the 33-31 record he accumulated during his first time in the league.

Or because the Seahawks will grant him full-fledge power over player personnel, on-field decisions and the like.

Or even because his contract with the Seahawks will be much more lucrative than his current salary at USC.

Instead, Pete Carroll will leave the paradise that is Southern California and Trojan football because, quite frankly, the university’s football program is more problematic than paradisiacal.

USC is no longer a shoe-in to win the Pac-10, play for a BCS bowl game and finish in the AP Poll’s top five, like it did for seven straight seasons before the Trojans’ most recent campaign.

From top to bottom, the Pac-10 has become exponentially more competitive over the last handful of years. After all, USC’s last nine regular-season losses have all come at the hands of conference foes.

Outside of the Pac-10, there is a multitude of up-and-coming programs—both from BCS and non-BCS conferences—which has created even more of a struggle to qualify for a BCS bowl game, especially in the wake of non-BCS teams being eligible for BCS postseason play (see: Boise State and TCU). A few years ago a BCS conference school was deemed superior to that of a non-BCS conference even if the latter had a better record at season’s end. Today, it is essentially a leveled playing field whether or not you belong to a BCS conference.

And then there is the Trojan team itself, which has more question marks than a text message from a valley girl—“Hey, like, what’s, like, up?????????????????”

How will USC handle next season’s reality that it will not be favored to win the Pac-10, or even end the season in the conference’s top three after last year’s fifth-place finish? Will the offense be able to bounce back after a season in which it lacked creativity and explosiveness? Will quarterback Matt Barkley be as effective now that two of the Trojans’ best offensive playmakers—running back Joe McKnight and wide receiver Damian Williams—are off to the NFL? And how will USC deal with the loss of preseason All-American safety Taylor Mays, who was the heart and soul of its defense?

Carroll is no stranger to these questions. He is well aware that USC’s supremacy out West is slowly but surely on the decline, and he also knows cross-town rival UCLA is inching closer to serious contention in the Los Angeles college football arena.

The real question is: Will Pete Carroll be as successful during his second stint in the NFL as he was throughout his nine-year tenure at USC?

Because we all know he is headed back there.

Josh Hoffman is a college junior working to become a sports journalist. You can contact him at [e-mail] and follow him on Twitter here .