Thoughts from the underground

USC welcomed Lane Kiffin as the new head coach of USC yesterday. If he wasn’t coming with that all-star staff I would be very disappointed. However, with Coach O, Monte Kiffin, possibly Chow and Davis…WOW how can you be against it? I would say that a veteran offensive coordinator will be very important. I do not think that play calling will be an issue if Kiffin is the one calling the plays. Rather it is the lack of experience in big games and a young coach tendencies not to break tendencies and thus becoming predictable to experienced defensive coordinators.  Young Kiffin still needs to grow in this area.

In terms of recruiting, often times when Kiffin was here he was regarded as the second best closer next to Pete. All this talk about recruiting violations is a little bit premature.I do not remember any allegations against USC or Kiffin in particular while at USC in terms of recruiting. My take is that Kiffin needed to make a splash in the SEC because he was regarded as young coach in a tough conference. He went over board to show that he was more than able to complete in what regarded as the best football conference in college football. He went overboard…granted. Somehow I do not see that being an issue in the Pac X. If anything I feel that this signals that USC is pretty confident that the NCAA will not come down hard on the program in terms of violations.

The thing that I find interesting is that Chow and Davis are even considering coming back and being under Kiffin. I heard that Kiffin and his style and appointment to OC directly led to Chow and Davis walking away. I heard they could not work under a brat like Kiffin….The more and more we found out about Pete the more it seems Pete had more to do with it than Kiffin.

In the end I think it is a great hire as a whole.This would be a top tier staff. If Chow, Davis and Dat come in to round out the staff I would call this a HOME RUN by USC.

Although it is not official yet all signs point to Coach Carroll leaving my Trojans for the Seattle Seahawks. Alot of trojan fans and alumni are upset and disappointed. I for one… am not.  Pete Carroll will go down as the greatest USC coach in history. He had an amazing run and it was awesome to be a trojan during the Pete Carroll era. However, I felt that Pete got bored and started to look for challenges and many times to the demise of the team. After USC dominated 2004 he cleaned house in the coaching staff and wanted to prove he could do it with rookies coaches. After that successful run he decided he wanted to do it with even a weaker staff and an 18 year old at quarterback. For the first half of the season it looked like he was going to pull it off. Does Barkley start given an open competition for the QB position? Does anyone from the current staff stay with a new coach? The answer to both is most likely no. Yet it looked like Pete was not going to change anything for next year. So other than the timing in regards to recruiting I think the parting is good for both parties. USC was beginning to slide and Pete was too bored to do anything to prevent it. USC got everything out of Pete and Pete got everything out of USC. I just hope he never coaches at another college and I really hope he NEVER coaches against USC. Thanks for the memories Pete. The Trojan family wishes you the best of luck.

As for the next coach…. USC has NEVER been in a better position to attract an Elite coach….NEVER…..I HOPE Fisher and Del Rio are not serious candidates. I doubt that they are. The Titans were the hottest team down the stretch and Del Rio has a 15 million buyout if he is fired. Riley is a great coach no doubt but I hope Mike G remembers what made Pete so great at the beginning. It was his burning desire to succeeded. He wanted it bad. Now….obliviously Pete wanted to prove he was a good coach and exercise some demons but surely Mike can find a young hungry coach….an Urban Meyer before he got to Florida. I kind of like Harbaugh…a young hungry badass coach…who is not afraid to kick your ass and will not apologize for it later….I dig that kind of coach….

I  don’t make resolutions but rather I set goals for myself at the start of the year. I do not always achieve them all but this year I am determined to get to as close as 100% as possible.  I am making these public so that I can have more accountability….Here we go with the goals for 2010…

Professional:

IEEE CSDP Certification – Took the test in Dec…Find out the results in Feb

Sun Certified Java Programmer

Sun Certified Web Component Developer

Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD)

Maybe – Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)

ACE ColdFusion -

Ambitious I know but I think definiatly doable. I feel this will certify my “Application Architect” Title

Sports:

Pasadena Tri in March

WildFlower Half Ironman in May

Mudrun in June

Tri in August

Muddy Buddy in November

Wildflower is the big one….

There it is…wish me luck!