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Is Pete Carroll one of the best of all-time in college football history?

Right now he's 65-12 with USC. He has the highest winning % for active coaches (min. 5 yrs). he's won two National Championships. He's coached/recruited three Hesiman trophy winners: Carson Palmer, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinhart.

Pete had one of the best winning streaks of all-time, 34 games.

He's a recruiting machine. His recruiting classes on scout were ranked like this:

2002: #12
2003: #1
2004: #1
2005: #6
2006: #1
2007: #2

There's no denying the guy is great. Is he a top 5-10 coach of all-time? Is it to early to tell? Being a USC fan I'm obviously biased, but he should defintely be mentioned.

If he stays another 10 years, there is no doubt in my mind USC will continue with this type of success.

Two words: Bear Bryant.

Carroll isn't even in the same league.

norm chow is better.

Carrol has another 15-20 in him. HArd to judge a coach before his career is over, ask that Ohio State coach that punched that dude.

KingInExile wrote:Two words: Bear Bryant.

Carroll isn't even in the same league.

two words: fully agree

He said one of the best, not the best all time...

TyCobb wrote:He said one of the best, not the best all time...

randomhero423 wrote:Is Pete Carroll one of the best of all-time in college football history?

Carroll is not in the same league as one of the all-time best, which is what I consider Bear Bryant.

He is absolutely one of the best of all-time. Not many coaches in the history of college football have had the kind of run he has had. And there isn't any reason to believe this train is going to slow down. He'll have a few more national championships before it's all said and done.

He's certainly one of the best recruiters of all time, and IMO it's harder now to recruit such great classes than ever before. In a way though I think that might detract from his coaching reputation. With all those great classes he should be dominating. I'd put him a little below these guys with room to move up if he keeps it up:
Bobby Bowden, who took a Florida State program that was the Duke of its era and never left the top 10 for over a decade.
Tom Osborne, who somehow kept bringing elite talent to Lincoln and consistently had them in the national title picture, winning a couple IIRC.
Ara Parseghian at Notre Dame
Knute Rockne at Notre Dame
Steve Spurrier at Florida, and I give the Old Ball Coach extra credit for somehow getting a 9-win season at Duke and also vastly improving SC in a short time
I'd have to look up numbers on guys like Woody Hayes, Dan Devine, Barry Switzer, John Robinson, Paul Brown, Paterno, etc. to be fair to all parties.

There's lots of guys in the lower divisions who had far more successful, linger coaching runs. It's a different game at those levels but it's none the less impressive. Check out Mount Union the last 20 years or Rowan College in the 70s-80s. Don't forget Jim Tressel, who won 4 titles at YSU in 7-8 years and then took Ohio State to a title in three years, and the Buckeyes played for the title last year and just might this year too.

Best of all time gotta be Bowden and Paterno. Bryant's also up there. As for young coaches reaching that status, I'd go with Urban Meyer and Carroll.

a girl in my speech class did a speech last year on why bobby bowden is the greatest coach of all time. she now eats through a straw.

One of the best! But is Carroll the best coach of Pac-10 history? Or what about best coach in USC history? All that matters is that he stays a way from the NFL permanently. He failed twice, same thing with Erickson. And F that 3rd times a charm garbage people love 2 say. B4 Caroll got to USC, most Californians were going to the Oregon & Washington schools, but lots of them now are going to USC.

This might seem like a knee jerk reaction, but I'm not so sure he is one of the greatest coaches, but hot damn, he's one hell of a recruiter.

I've just never looked at any of his teams and the talent level and thought "wow, they shouldn't be this good." It's always the other way around really.