As a Notre Dame guy, I hate to say this to you, Pete. But, as a sportswriter who got to know you pretty well when you were coaching the Patriots, I feel I should.

Stay at Southern Cal.

Don't go to Seattle to coach the Seahawks.

Although I strongly suspect that's what you're sorely tempted to do.

As a competitor -- and, pleasant demeanor aside, people should know that you are fiercely, intensely competitive -- you've always wanted to prove you can win in the NFL.

Which you didn't do in New England, taking over an AFC championship team from Bill Parcells that had gone 11-5 and proceeding to go 10-6, then 9-7, and, finally, 8-8, in 1999, when you were fired.

Since you were 6-10 in the one season you coached the New York Jets, it didn't seem likely you'd get another chance in the NFL.

Now you do. The Seahawks would love to have you, having fired Jim Mora just one season after he succeeded Mike Holmgren.

Don't take the job.

Stay at USC. Where, it appears, you're guaranteed at least one win a year -- over the Fighting Irish.

You have, of course, won a lot more than that. In nine seasons, you've won two national titles -- and would have had a third, had it not been for a sensational performance by Texas QB Vince Young -- and seven Pac-10 titles. You've had three Heisman Trophy winners.

You are a great college coach. Your enthusiasm and relentlessly upbeat personality is perfect for the college game. What recruit could resist your sales pitch and the charms of USC? Not to mention the illegal inducements available. Although, now that we have mentioned them, more on that subject in a minute.

Early on in your stint with the Patriots, I referred to you as "California Clueless." I thought you were overmatched. Turns out I was the one who was clueless. By the time just about everyone else in the New England media wanted you gone, I was hoping you'd stay. I had come to realize you were a very good football coach.

When you got the job at USC, I was positive you'd do well. (Full disclosure: I also thought Charlie Weis would do very well at ND, so it's not as if I always get it right.)

You're the perfect college coach. You have a football mentality that's straight out of the NFL, and a personality perfectly suited to the college game.

Which is not to say that things are perfect at USC these days. And you know I'm not talking about the Trojans' disappointing record this season. I'm talking about how the NCAA is looking into what that august organization likes to refer to as "extra benefits" that Heisman winner Reggie Bush and current RB Joe McKnight may have received while -- and I use this term loosely -- "student-athletes" at USC.

The basketball program already has penalized itself, hoping to fend off even more severe sanctions from the NCAA, for violations involving hired -- literally -- gun O.J. Mayo, who honed his game at USC for a year before moving on to the NBA, as everyone knew he was going to do from the moment he, as former coach Tim Floyd said, "recruited himself" to the Land of Troy.

If you leave for Seattle now, it'll look like you're getting out of town one step ahead of the posse. And I'm not talking about the hangers-on who surround some of your players. I'm talking about the NCAA investigators.

You're Coach Carroll, for crying out loud, not Coach Calipari. If problems occurred at USC during your watch, you should stay and straighten them out. In the long run, that would do a lot more for your reputation than proving you can be a winner in the NFL.