1/8/10: a date which will live in infamy?

It sounds like the annual postseason ritual of Pete-Carroll-to-the-NFL rumors is more than just rumors this year. The L.A. Times is reporting that he’s gone, or damn close to gone: “the Seahawks and Carroll are close to a deal, which is believed to be a five-year contract to become president and head coach at $7 million a year.” The Daily News make it sound even closer to final: “sources within the university said he accepted a job with the Seattle Seahawks and only needed to agree to final contract details.”

If this is true, it will be, obviously, the biggest story of the offseason, with the big questions being who will replace him — Riley? Harbaugh? Del Rio? Fisher? — and whether this spells the end, really and truly, of the USC dynasty, circa 2002-2008. (This past season was not really a “dynasty” sort of year.)

If it is the end, those brutal close losses from ’06 to ’08 — Texas, Oregon State, fUCLA, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State again — will loom a lot larger. With Carroll at the helm, you always had the sense that USC would be in championship contention pretty much every year, with rare exceptions like ’09, so although we woulda/coulda/shoulda won the national title in 2005-06 and/or 2006-07 and/or 2007-08 and/or 2008-09, it was okay because we’d have plenty more chances again in the future, if Carroll decided to stick around for a few decades and become the next Joe Paterno or Bear Bryant. Now, maybe, or maybe not. And if the Carroll Years end up yielding “only” 2 national titles — or 1, or 1 1/2, depending on how you do the math, and that’s without even getting into the Reggie Bush penalty possibilities — the ratio of missed opportunities to actual triumphs is going to be a lot higher than most Trojans fans could have imagined when we were crushing Oklahoma 55-19 in the Orange Bowl five years ago, and contemplating a true “win forever” future.