Everyone knows he can win football games, even ones that bring national championships.

His fellow coaches respect, admire and, yes, most assuredly envy Pete Carroll.
The media? We love the guy. During some telecasts, his face appears on-screen more often than the score does.
But you want to know where USC’s golden guru has failed? And not just a little bit?
Some of the all-time great leaders in college sports — and Carroll has been a great leader of the Trojans — have spawned other successful leaders. Some coaches have “coaching trees.”
Carroll, at best, has a “coaching shrub.”
And Saturday, he’ll attempt to pin yet another setback on one of his former assistants, Steve Sarkisian, the rookie head coach at Washington, perhaps the least successful program in the country the past two years.
“Once that kickoff goes,” Sarkisian said, trying to minimize the significance of facing his ex-boss, “it will be just football.”
For the Huskies, that’s bad news. They’d be better off trying to make it about something else.
Tennis? Hacky Sack? Cake-baking?
USC is favored by three touchdowns and, barring a Trojans hangover from Ohio State (and Columbus, trust us, can produce hangovers), the gap Saturday should exceed 21 points.
That would be more of the same for Carroll, whose otherwise beefy resume needs some padding in the area of developing disciples.
After the 2003 season, Nick Holt went from coaching Carroll’s linebackers to head coaching Idaho. In two seasons, his teams won five times. He is now Sarkisian’s defensive coordinator.
A year after Holt departed, Ed Orgeron left Carroll’s staff to take over at Mississippi. Within two years, it wasn’t enough that someone had established FireCoachO.com, so up popped FireCoachO.net.
The Rebels had their first winless season in the SEC in a quarter century under Orgeron, whose record in three years there was 10-25.
At his current pace, Carroll will lose his 25th game at USC in his 14th season. We’re talking the year 2014, at the earliest.
Does this mean Carroll’s a miserable mentor? Not necessarily. It might just mean his assistants aren’t very good head coaches. Or very good at picking out jobs.
Lane Kiffin left the sanity of USC for an NFL job in Oakland, where the office walls are as padded as the players’ shoulders.
“When you get to Oakland, it’s a different experience,” said Sarkisian, a one-time Raiders assistant.
“(The NFL’s) a different environment, especially in Oakland.”
Yeah, and Neptune’s a different environment, too.
Kiffin lasted only 20 games winning just five of them before being dismissed under bizarre circumstances that included a creepy news conference in which Al Davis used an overhead projector to illustrate Kiffin’s evil ways.
Kiffin since has become the head coach at Tennessee, where he had a triumphant debut and then lost Saturday, at home, before 102,000, to UCLA no less.
As a former USC guy, Kiffin might have been more comfortable walking off the field wearing nothing but his socks.
On Tuesday, this headline appeared down in SEC country: “Question about Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin:
Can he coach?”
So now here’s Sarkisian, trying to establish something for himself and, as a byproduct, fix the only part of Carroll’s empire in need of repair.
“Our biggest fear is to make too much of this game,” Sarkisian said. “I want this to be a normal week.”
Minutes later, Washington’s quarterback, Jake Locker, was asked about the enormity of this Titanic matchup, the mountain of intrigue this program and its young coach is about to climb.
“It is,” Locker said, “just like any other game for us.”
OK, so Sarkisian’s biggest fear also might be his biggest waste of time.
We will say this much: This would be a more interesting story if Sarkisian and Carroll disliked each other, even a little bit.
Those are the coaching columns that are fun to write, the ones where they grunt about mutual respect when, in reality, everyone knows each guy would rather stand on the other’s neck.
This week, however, Sarkisian has done everything but dip Carroll and his program in bronze.
“You have to respect who they are, respect what they’ve done,” he said. “The run they’ve had down there is amazing. I like to bring it up to give credit to Pete. I like to bring it up because they deserve it.”
And then he said this about USC freshman quarterback Matt Barkley:
“I can’t envision, can’t imagine Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, John David Booty or Mark Sanchez doing what he’s doing. At the end of four years, I think he’ll be better than any of them.”
With that, Sarkisian thanked Carroll for the guidance, for the freedom he was afforded in play-calling and for the opportunity to realize his dream of becoming a head coach.
But if he really wants to thank Carroll, Sarkisian could win some games, starting right after the one Saturday.
Carroll could use a successful protege. So far, he has had only no-teges.