USC Needs to Hire a Nick Saban, Butch Davis, or Jim Tressel

Now, I did not say that USC needs to hire Butch Davis, Jim Tressel, or Nick Saban, so calm down. (Although Butch Davis IS a name that the Trojans should consider.)

Instead, they need to hire a guy like those coaches.

It is not as difficult as it sounds, because Davis, Tressel, and Saban weren't big name coaches before they were hired by Miami, Ohio State, and LSU respectively.

Instead, Davis was an obscure NFL assistant, Tressel a great but still unknown I-AA coach, and Saban was laboring away at Michigan State. USC needs to find another guy who fits that profile and make him a star.

Why? Well, when Pete Carroll had his first big year, 2002, the bowl game matchup that year with Iowa was called "Hollywood versus the heartland," with USC being Hollywood.

Right now, USC needs a more "heartland" approach, a no-nonsense, blue-collar, meat and potatoes guy who will evade and discourage the "rock star" stuff and do his best to prevent his program from becoming the circus that USC often became under Carroll.

Things like how Joe Paterno refused to allow names on the back of jerseys because he wanted his players to focus on the team, and how Tressel severely limits Terrelle Pryor's interviews...things like that.

The reason is that the Hollywood thing is precisely what landed USC in trouble. Carroll built and encouraged a laid-back, have fun and be noticed atmosphere in the city that is filled to the brim with temptations and where it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with everyone's comings and goings because it is so huge.

Carroll used that atmosphere to attract and keep star-struck (and star-wannabe) 17-year-olds and let them loose into that carnival environment.

When you let kids run loose in a carnival, they are going to play.

The problem isn't just kids acting like kids are going to (unless they are restrained.) The problem is that everyone knows that if you go to a place where kids are playing, there is money to be made off the entertainment! I am talking about agents, sports marketers, runners, and all other unethical sorts.

If these types of things are problems in places like Stillwater, Oklahoma for a program trying to stay in the top 15 (see Dez Bryant), you can only imagine what it is like for the No. 1 program in America in a town built by and on movers, shakers, users, and abusers.

To make a long story short, Carroll was playing with fire by allowing, encouraging, and promoting the Hollywood thing at USC, and he got burned. It is actually amazing that there weren't even more problems around the USC program than there were. 

Even though it may clash with the famous West Coast mindset—and that of the media also—USC needs a more disciplinarian, no-nonsense type with a boot camp mentality towards his players and a less flashy product on the field. Now this is a real issue.

Now part of the reason why coaches like Carroll and Rick Neuheisel are embraced by the media to begin with is their laid-back, have fun attitude and wide open approaches to the game. Coaches who win with the basics instead of flash are often called boring, unimaginative guys who win on talent, and disciplinarian coaches are often called controlling.

Not only are guys like Nick Saban and Jim Tressel often treated viciously in the sports press, but Hollywood has even created the archetypal "Midwestern/Southern football coach as fascist villain" seen so often in movies like Varsity Blues (where the students take over the team and abandon the coach's run-oriented scheme for a spread passing attack!).

But the fact is that the "laid-back" guys like Neuheisel (left big messes at Colorado and Washington that others got blamed for), Dennis Erickson, Barry Switzer (who was actually quite progressive for his day and time, especially when compared to his hard-charging predecessor Bud Wilkinson), and now Carroll frequently create an environment that leads to trouble. 

The breezy, laid-back approach may play well with the Western (and Northeastern) media types who (let's face it) because of their politics often distrust authority, but it is a recipe for disaster when dealing with 17- to 22-year-old star athletes that are often very immature, have huge egos that mask low self-esteem (yep, it's true; a lot of these kids have no sense of self-worth or belonging apart from sports), and are from troubled backgrounds.

In order to limit trouble, coaches need to create a highly disciplined and structured environment, and not one where they schmooze and pal around with Snoop Dogg, Kirsten Dunst, Alyssa Milano, and the Kardashian sisters.

It is not just having a no-nonsense disciplinarian coach. There is a reason why Reggie Bush was a much bigger media star than Mark Ingram even though both won Heismans for national title contending programs: USC's flashy style of play.

Not only does it attract media star wannabes like Bush (and Joe McKnight, who came to USC to follow in Bush's footsteps only to do so in a way that McKnight didn't want! ), but it adds to the Hollywood circus too.

If USC has a coach like Tressel, Saban, Paterno, Butch Davis, etc. who can bring in boatloads of talent, contend for and win titles, and send a bunch of guys to the NFL and do it WITHOUT making individual players obvious Madison Avenue bait and targets for guys looking to make money off their fame, then that is ideal.

What I am speaking of has actually already been accomplished and is precisely why USC needs to be on the phone with Butch Davis right now.

USC should seriously considering hiring Davis not only because he led Miami through some very severe NCAA sanctions, including huge scholarship reductions (and yes, it does appear that the NCAA is going to take some action against the USC football program, although not nearly as severe as against Miami or for that matter Alabama, who only got back to 85 scholarships a year or two ago).

Davis' stewardship resulted in a team that should have won the title in 2000 (were prevented by the BCS) and did win the title in 2001 (Davis was gone, but it was his players and program, as was soon evidenced by its collapse under Larry Coker).

Instead, Davis was a tough, no-nonsense disciplinarian who took Miami from its "the U " image created under Jimmy Johnson's watch (and recall that the Dallas team that Johnson constructed had similar off-the-field problems) and allowed to spiral completely out of control under Dennis Erickson.

If he did it once, he can do it again, and it would actually be easier for him to do it at USC because the climate there hasn't gotten nearly as out of control as it was at Miami.

That is, it hasn't gotten that much out of control YET. Because as mentioned earlier, it was the combination of Johnson and Erickson that allowed Miami to get so bad. If USC follows Pete Carroll with another coach who is oblivious to the realities of the challenge ahead of him, it could happen to USC too.

USC can't let that happen. They should instead hire a no-nonsense guy immediately.