Carroll Has No Beef With NCAA

USC Coach Pete Carroll did not protest the NCAA’s decision Thursday to cut two football scholarships for the 2002-03 academic year as part of sanctions against the Trojan athletic department, even though the infractions occurred years before he arrived on campus.

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Carroll said. “It’s out of our hands, so there’s no use bellyaching about it. We’re just going to move on and do the best we can.”

The NCAA penalized USC after discovering that tutors wrote papers for three athletes--including two football players--in the late 1990s.

The penalty shouldn’t hit the Trojans too hard, though, because they are not utilizing their full allotment of 85 scholarships. USC has 82 scholarship players, including three players--linebacker Marvin Simmons and defensive ends Raymond Tago and Daniel Pryor--whose eligibility is in doubt.

Carroll said the eligibility hurdles remind him of problems he faced in the NFL as coach of the New England Patriots, where contract negotiations and salary cap issues prevented players from joining the team.

“It feels kind of like that’s what we’ve gone through here,” he said. “We’ve had some issues that have cropped up that didn’t allow us to get the guys we were counting on. It doesn’t seem that much different.”

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The NCAA has ruled that junior college transfer Martin Janzon is ineligible and cannot join the USC team.

The native of Norrkoping, Sweden, most recently played for Orange Coast College but had previous experience with an amateur football club in his native country.

USC filed an appeal for additional eligibility based on the low level of competition in Sweden. The university was hoping to set a precedent but the NCAA cited similar cases that were denied.

“I’m real disappointed in the whole process coming down to this,” Carroll said. “I feel really bad for the kid.”

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Practices usually run about 2 hours 15 minutes, but Carroll dismissed the team after about 50 minutes Thursday because he liked the way his players reacted to a challenge.

“We started practice to see if we could break them down and we couldn’t,” Carroll said. “They just kept responding to us. If they were working really hard, I wanted to get them out early.”

Kickers David Davis and David Newbury stayed behind to work on field goals, though. “They need the work,” Carroll said.

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Carroll said he will start the process of “bringing back” his weary players’ legs after the Trojans complete their final two-a-day practices today.