OH, HELL NO!: UCLA Rumored to Be Interested in Pete Carroll
Not even Dan Guerrero would have ever considered hiring Cheatey Petey if he were available.
Let me start this article off by being perfectly clear: Pete Carroll is NOT welcome in Westwood. Not now. Not ever.
Yet there is an article out there suggesting that Martin Jarmond could be looking to hire Pete Carroll to replace Chip Kelly if Carroll is fired by the Seahawks after a season which has seen the team win just six of the sixteen games Seattle has played this season.
Pro Football Network’s Cam Mellor, who SB Nation hired to write for all of their California sites after AB 5 became law, shows that he learned absolutely nothing about the UCLA fanbase while he was writing for BruinsNation.com by suggesting that the Bruins could potentially want to replace Chip Kelly with Cheatey Petey.
In the article, Mellor discusses the pending disappearance of Kelly’s buyout and he suggests that UCLA might opt to move on from Kelly. As usual, Mellor conveniently forgets the fact that if UCLA were to dismiss Kelly on or after January 16th, the Bruins would still have to pay out Kelly’s 2022 salary of $4.6 million.
Sure, $4.6M is about half of the $9M buyout required if Kelly is fired prior to next Sunday, January 16, but with the department about $40M in the hole already, it’s still pricey to terminate Kelly.
But Mellor acts as if UCLA could fire Kelly next Sunday and not owe him a dime and that’s just not true.
He then goes on to quote Tony Pauline from Pro Football Network’s Between the Hashes podcast. Pauline said, “From what I’m hearing, UCLA could potentially try and court Pete Carroll, to bring Pete Carroll in as the head coach of UCLA.”
That has got to be the dumbest rumor I’ve heard in all my time writing about UCLA sports. Not even Dan Guerrero would be dumb enough to try to hire Pete Carroll. Carroll showed a reckless disregard for NCAA rules at Southern Cal, earning him the nickname Cheatey Petey in the process. There is no way that UCLA fans would ever accept Pete Carroll as the head coach of the Bruins.
In fact, hiring Carroll would probably have cause more season ticket holders to not renew their tickets than retaining Kelly would. Personally, I’m a season ticket holder and have been one for more than 20 years and, if Pete Carroll was hired, I would not renew my seats. It’s a matter of principle.
UCLA doesn’t need a splashy hire to combat the Lincoln Riley hiring across town. The Bruins need to hire the right guy — an up-and-coming coach who is ready to lead a program to greatness, not an NFL and NCAA retread who has seen the game pass him by at the age of 70.
Speaking of coaching rumors, there is another credible UCLA coaching rumor. This one comes from Bruin Report Online and involves UCLA offensive coordinator Justin Frye. According to Tracy Pierson, Frye is in line to be hired as Ohio State’s offensive line coach.
This rumor, if true, has the possibility to hurt UCLA in the trenches. After the mess that was the offense line was during the Jim Mora years, Frye has done an excellent job developing the Bruins offensive line.
His work has paid off on the field. UCLA’s running game has been a vital part of the Bruin offense and Frye’s work with the offensive line deserves credit for much if not all of it.
In fact, I might even go as far as to suggest that Frye deserves at least some consideration to be the Bruins’ next head coach if Kelly should leave. That said, if Frye leaves UCLA for Ohio State, I fully expect to see him get hired somewhere as either an OC or a head coach in the not-so-distant future. He’s definitely an up-and-coming coach. He just might not be quite ready to become a head coach quite yet.
Regardless, if the Bruins should lose Frye, the running game is likely to suffer as a result. He will certainly be tough to replace.
Go Bruins!!!
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Mellor was always a bad reporter who just regurgitates things he reads. No actual investigation. Way to much credence in anonymous sources. “From what I’m hearing, UCLA could potentially try and court Pete Carroll." What? From what you are "hearing?" What are you, Stephen A. Smith pretending you employ a team of elves that sneak around NBA locker rooms and call you in the middle of the night with info that is usually wrong? Well guess what, I'm "hearing" that UCLA "could" be interested in Nick Saban if he becomes available. I heard it from some guys in a bar who heard it from some people close to UCLA. UCLA "could" "potentially" court Carroll? Sure they "could." They also "could" court every other coach in the country if they wanted to.
I absolutely detest the guy.