College Football Coaches as Star Wars Characters
Pete Carroll: Grand Moff Tarkin
Let’s spend some time on retired college football head coaches who won national championships in the BCS era, beginning with Pete Carroll. Carroll is now almost an afterthought in college football, but while he was there he was the head of a dynasty.
Then it became clear that the dynasty included only one BCS National Championship.
Grand Moff Tarkin, in similar fashion, was viewed as a major player in the original film, A New Hope. But we came to find out later through the expanded universe and the movies that he was not that much of a player in the grand scheme of things, and he was really just the main guy on the First Death Star because nobody important was tasked with overseeing it.
And the probation the USC Trojans received as a result of the Reggie Bush scandal was the final blow to Carroll’s relevance in college football, the same way the destruction of the First Death Star was the final blow to Tarkin’s relevance. He was ruthless while running the Death Star and got a taste of his own medicine.
But reflection of his power became an afterthought after that battle station was destroyed. Reflection of Carroll’s success became an afterthought after the program had to forfeit its lone BCS National Championship.
Next: Jim Tressel: Darth Maul