Even though USC football has hit a rough patch in recent years, the Trojans are still one of the most successful programs of this century so far.
That’s almost all thanks to the successes of the Pete Carroll era, which were many.
Even so, Carroll’s teams only came away with two national titles. There could have been many more, if just a couple of “what ifs” had gone a different way.
For the purposes of this exercise, the “what if” moments are being restricted to plays with as clear outcomes as possible. That means something like “what if Vince Young’s knee-down lateral touchdown had been reversed” isn’t on the table, because that play happened in the first half and it’s impossible to track exactly how the rest of the game would have gone from there.