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The Seahawks made big news this week when they lured Pete Carroll away from USC to come coach in Seattle. Carroll has been unquestionably great at USC, but will that success translate to success at the pro level? Lest you forget, Carroll has coached in the NFL before, and with only marginal results. Carroll coached one year for the Jets in 1994, going 6-10. Carroll had a second chance as a head coach, taking over for Bill Parcells with New England in 1997. Although his Patriots made the playoffs in his first two seasons, Carroll took over a team that had been to the Super Bowl and it regressed each year under his control. Will Carroll be able to succeed like he has at USC with Seattle, or is the difference between the pro and college game just too much?

At the surface the pro and college games seem similar. Both are based on the same essential rules, so it is natural to expect that success at one level should translate to success at the other level, but so often this is not the case. In both basketball and football, time and time again pro teams turn to the college ranks to find their next great coach. This had yielded some successes, Jimmy Johnson and Larry Brown, to name two, but more often than not it is met with failure.

Why is this transition so hard to make successfully? Some say that the personality required to coach highly-paid grown men is different from what's needed to coach college kids. Another reason is that talent level and speed in the pros is significantly higher than in the college game. For this reason a lot of schemes and styles that work in college just don’t cut it in the NFL and NBA. Also, players in the NFL flock to the biggest paycheck, whereas in college it's all about recruiting. Whatever the reason, it is clear that it is a tough transition for anyone to make. We wish Pete Carroll success, but if he fails he will needed to be added to our Top Ten Worst College to Pro Coaching Transitions.