One of the great regrets of Pac-12 football is that Chip Kelly and Pete Carroll were never able to settle into a five- or six-year period in which they were matching wits with each other at Oregon and USC. Just imagine what it would have been like to have Kelly as the ultimate offensive guru versus Carroll’s defensive mind in a series of high-stakes showdowns.
As we all know, Carroll left USC after the 2009 college football season to go to the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL with the NCAA bearing down on the Trojans in a witch hunt. Kelly took over at Oregon in 2009 and began to catapult Oregon to top-tier status in the Pac-12 and in college football. Oregon played in the 2010 season’s BCS National Championship Game and was a factor in subsequent national title races. USC declined immediately after Carroll’s departure, hit by those unfair NCAA sanctions.
We discuss the late 2000s and early 2010s as they relate to USC and Oregon football history in our recent show with Ducks Wire editor Zac Neel and staff writer Don Smalley. Here’s the show:
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