Destiny is a Beautiful Thing

Now it’s five down, one to go. And, No. 1 Ohio State plays No. 2 Michigan this Saturday. Beautiful.

Like we’ve said before, there’s nothing like controlling your own destiny. In football some coaches like to state the obvious, then go out and make it happen, like the SEC’s resident idiot Tommy Tuberville. Other coaches like to whine about the system in an attempt to influence it, like Mack Brown and Charlie Weis.

Still other coaches (and apparently there are very few of them) understand that controlling a football team’s destiny means nothing more than focusing on the things that the team can actually control. This is how our man Pete Carroll approaches destiny, and he seems to know what he’s doing.

As Carroll said following USC’s loss to Oregon State, “You never know … we’ll see what happens.” Then he shut up about the Trojans’ BCS hopes and went about using the loss as a “teaching moment” to make his team better. In the meantime, “what happens” did actually happen …

West Virginia was exposed by Louisville, which in turn was exposed one week later by Rutgers. Then Auburn’s war eagle took a dive and Texas got knocked by Kansas State. We thought we would have to wait for Arkansas to take out Florida, but the Harris Poll voters and six computer algorithms took care of that. Brilliant.

All this in time for Carroll’s approach to take hold, setting up USC to deliver the ultimate “f-bomb” to anyone who thought the Trojans should apologize for winning close games earlier in the season. Of course, the next three games are (on paper) the toughest on USC’s schedule, and we haven’t won anything yet. But it’s nice to know that wherever the Trojans end up this bowl season will be determined by USC on the field.

Destiny is a beautiful thing, indeed … especially when it’s within your control.
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