USC Trojans Coach Pete Carroll Caroling Christmas Spirit Through ESPN

The USC Trojans are playing a great game of spin the opinion with the assist to ESPN.

The Trojans play Boston College tonight in the Emerald Bowl and they might be without star running back Joe McKnight.

Southern California's 1000-yard rusher is under investigation after it was discovered that McKnight has been driving a 2006 Land Rover registered to and owned by local businessman Scott Schenter, according to the Los Angeles Times.  

When asked about the vehicle, McKnight denied ever driving the vehicle and claimed that the 2006 Land Rover was, “my baby mama's boss'.”

He practiced with the team on Friday, but his status is still uncertain.

It was a tiny blurb on ESPN's Sportscenter in the past few days.

But just in time for Christmas the Trojans have been featured on Sportscenter in a way Tiger Woods of Dec. '09 could only dream of.

First there was the Stafon Johnson story; while benching during a team workout session, the bar slipped and fell right onto his throat. There were comments from coach Carroll that made me want to shed a tear. It was a very emotional piece and really made me think what a great school USC is.

Then I remembered the Joe McKnght story. And why air the Johnson story now? The accident happened in September. Interesting timing.

The next day the story was about a sick little boy's wish to meet his favorite player—the center at USC. Another story that shed a very positive light on the team.

It is pretty blatant to see that USC needed to have those two stories in the news to take the light off McKnight. ESPN did them a favor by broadcasting the two "fluff" pieces.

Why did ESPN agree to do this? Is there some sort of connection?

What a spin job by the Trojans PR staff and Pete Carroll. Well done. Yet another USC scandal with minimal media coverage.