after people came to grips with the hire, it played well

by Jay, San Diego, Thursday, April 23, 2009, 06:40 (6244 days ago) @ Pete

Much like the ND fan base in 2005, back in 2001 Trojan fans were coming off 6-6 and 5-7 seasons and were crying out for a "return to glory." People were initially skeptical of the Carroll hire, since to that point in time all he had on the resume was "NFL failure, twice."

However, once he got in there he immediately breathed new life into the program. My cousin was living with me at the time while he went to grad school at USC, and together we went to a number of games in 2001, Pete's first year. They had a completely new look on offense thanks to Chow, and under his tutelage Palmer underwent a radical transformation from flaky meathead to a true Heisman candidate.

Carroll went 6-6 that first year, but lost games with scores like 6-10, 22-24, 24-27, etc. Even with that record, by the end of the first season Trojan fans knew they had a winner and everybody was jacked and pumped. The next year Pete was 11-2 and there was no looking back.