Seventeen.

That's the number of assistants on Pete Carroll-led staffs who've become head coaches at the NFL or NCAA level.

Teams hedging their futures on Carroll's former assistants isn't a coincidence. The proof is in the extensive coaching tree the now Raiders head coach began growing with the USC Trojans.

Taking a look at his former assistants from his days in Los Angeles, the likes of Lane Kiffin, Steve Sarkisian, Jedd Fisch and Ed Orgeron boast 279 combined victories as collegiate head coaches. With the nearly 300 career wins has also come various Coach of the Year awards, conference championships and even a national championship for Orgeron as the head coach of the undefeated 2020 LSU Tigers.

Carroll's tree has also produced five coordinators who've become NFL head coaches – one of which, Dan Quinn now with the Washington Commanders, made a Super Bowl appearance in his second season coaching the Atlanta Falcons.

Which leads us to ask – what's the secret?

What does the formula to success entail? And how have his philosophies trickled down at such a high success rate?

For Carroll, the answer is simple: "An understanding for competing."

"They find a way to make that an essential theme in their program as well," he said. "Because it's so crucial. It keeps you at your best, it keeps you challenged to find your best and bring it out in the players around you."

We could talk about Carroll's legendary Cover 3 defenses from his "Legion of Boom" era that led to consecutive Super Bowl appearances or the three Heisman Trophy winners he coached within a four-year span, leading to two straight national championships.

But let's dig deeper.

To unmask Pete Carroll's winning recipe, you must go beyond the X's and O's and find how he truly defines "competition."

You need to examine the person from the outlook of the coaches he helped mold.

Pete Carroll has been a prevalent name in the Kiffin household since Lane Kiffin was 5 years old.

After playing two seasons at safety for the now defunct Pacific Tigers football team, Carroll became a graduate assistant at his alma mater in 1973. He received his first real shot at coaching at the University of Arkansas in 1977 under legendary coach Lou Holtz. He received a glowing recommendation from former Pacific defensive coordinator Bob Cope, who had just joined their staff.

The newest Razorbacks graduate assistant would cross paths with Monte Kiffin, the team's defensive coordinator who ultimately popularized the "Tampa 2" defense which led the Buccaneers to their first Super Bowl title in 2002.

Carroll and Kiffin were almost immediately drawn to each other, with the young assistant's unique nature making an impression on Kiffin.

"There's nobody that taught me more about coaching football than Monte Kiffin," Carroll said. "He took me under his wing way back in Arkansas and from that point forward, he gave me approach, defensive philosophy, mentality, expectations, standards. He gave me so much and I owe so much to him."

Three years later, Monte was named the head coach of the NC State Wolfpack and hired a 28-year-old Carroll to be his defensive coordinator after spending a season coaching the Ohio State Buckeyes secondary.

"He would always tell me that he had this young assistant he just thought was brilliant," said Lane Kiffin, reflecting on the words of his late father. "[After] the interview process at Ohio State, he made [Pete] a coordinator so young and decided he had found this brilliant guy that was well beyond his years."

Shy of two decades after his last season under Monte in 1982, Carroll was named the head coach of the USC Trojans. This was an unexpected turn back to college for Carroll, who had spent the last 17 years coaching in the NFL with stints as the head coach of the New York Jets and the New England Patriots.

Not to mention USC's glory days had been long gone when Carroll took the job. He was entering into a full rebuild for the team that hadn't won a bowl game in five years.

Carroll didn't forget where he started, though, and returned the favor from the father to son by hiring Lane as USC's tight ends coach . Monte would frequently make trips to Los Angeles to visit his mentee's office and spend hours talking football.

"When Lane came around, I told Kiff, 'I'm going to give him everything I got. Just like you did me, I'm going to take care of him, do everything I can to give him the best chance possible to be all that he could possibly be,'" Carroll said.

In the process, Lane was provided with the first-hand experience of seeing Carroll turn the program around – and in utter dominating fashion.

In Lane's five seasons under Pete with the Trojans, they went 65-12 with four bowl game victories and two national championships. Their two BCS bowl game wins came with a combined 50-point margin of victory against Michigan and Oklahoma.

Yet ironically, the biggest lesson Lane learned came from losing. A pretty devasting loss actually. A loss that ended a 34-game win streak in the 2006 Rose Bowl.

As the Trojans were going for their third consecutive national championship, they were upset by Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns, 41-38. The contest still holds up as one of the greatest college football games. It drew an estimated 35.6 million viewers which stands as the most-watched college football game in history.

But as the adage goes: You can't win them all.

"He didn't seem as down as I would've thought," Lane said. "The team we played against had the game of their lifetime and he told me, 'I wanted to build this program so good that the only way we would lose is when a team just played lights out. And that's going to happen in this sport sometimes.'

"I thought that was such a unique way of looking at it, like you better play the game of your [life] in order to beat us. That's just how competitive and how high-level he wanted to build it. … He just wasn't going to let the building be down, it was amazing."

Kiffin was promoted up to offensive coordinator by the end of his tenure – parlaying his time under Carroll into being named the youngest head coach in Raiders history at 31 years old. He's now entering his sixth season as the Ole Miss Rebels head coach, with three bowl game victories and not a single losing season in his current tenure.

"His eval on players, he's always finding positives," Lane said of Carroll. "He was always like, 'You don't need to point out the things they can't do. What can they do and how can we make them do the other things better.'

"He was always going to bring everybody up to the top and he's carried that over into the NFL which doesn't happen a lot."

The Seattle Seahawks believed history would repeat itself for Carroll, and they were ultimately right.

In 2010, he left one rebuild at USC for another in the NFC West. The Seahawks had endured two consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1993, going 9-23 in the two seasons prior to hiring Pete.

One of the first people he added to his staff was Dave Canales, his assistant strength training coach at USC. He barely had any coaching experience before receiving this life altering opportunity.

While coaching at El Camino College in 2006, Dave Canales was introduced to Carroll by then USC quarterbacks coach Steve Sarkisian, a former player and coach at El Camino.

"He just wanted to connect with me as a human, not necessarily the football stuff," Canales said of Carroll. "I developed the relationship with him over the course of three years working his camps and he was never really concerned about what I knew from a football standpoint. He was more concerned with what I wanted to do and what were the next steps for [me]."

Three years later, Carroll brought Canales onto the Trojans staff, later bringing him with him to Seattle the following season. Canales worked his way up the ladder over 13 seasons from wide receivers coach to passing game coordinator to quarterbacks coach, and was part of the winning Super Bowl XLVIII coaching staff in 2014. He was named the Carolina Panthers head coach in 2024.

"At the professional level, you have to appeal to the reasoning and logical side of these grown men to say, 'Here's why need you to do it this way, because this leads to championship environment,'" Canales said. "The only way for us to get better at our craft is going balls to the wall, and it was that type of commitment that Pete had that I remember the most.

"And on top of it all, yes this is a job, but this game is supposed to be fun. So, let's make it fun. Let's make sure we don't lose sight of that. Winning is fun, but this sport is a lot of fun."

While bringing in Canales and a few other assistants from USC, he retained just two coaches from the former Seahawks staff: Dan Quinn, who was serving as the defensive line coach, and Gus Bradley, then the team's defensive coordinator.

Quinn's first impression of Carroll was his "down for whatever" persona which helped them quickly establish a relationship.

"One week into the job, I was going to a local boxing match, and I remember he said, 'Where's it at? I'll go with you,'" Quinn recalled. "And I thought it was such a cool way for him to find a way for an hour or two to connect with his new D-line coach and go out and watch a couple of fights out in Seattle. When someone shows you that individualized space and time after taking over a huge project, that shows a lot to me."

But Carroll wasn't just that way with his coaches. He made sure to set aside time for the players in his locker room as well. It's an ability that Quinn believes helped turn the team around in a short amount of time.

"He asked, 'If you care about someone so much and look after them and help develop them, what do you think will happen?' The simple answer is – they'll get better. So why not do that with every single player? But to do that, you have to know who they are, what they stand for and what they believe in. It's definitely impacted my philosophy as a coach to really get to know the man before the ball player."

Carroll is adamant that developing the person comes first before developing the player on the field, which he's preached to all of his assistants that've come and gone.

"It's about how you care for the people around you and the environment you build for them," Carroll said. "Because these guys need to be looked after as they try to challenge and survive the rigors of being a professional player. We have to look after them and we do that sincerely and we do it well and we have a chance to reach them and get the best they have in return."

Carroll's latest assistant to become an NFL head coach is the Dallas Cowboys' Brian Schottenheimer, who Carroll brought to Seattle to serve as offensive coordinator in 2018.

Schottenheimer, the son of the late NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer, had been the offensive coordinator for the New York Jets and St. Louis Rams for nine years up to that point. So, he was considered a seasoned veteran around the league by the time Carroll inherited him.

But the Seahawks head coach still had a few tricks to teach, as the Seahawks offense ranked top 10 in points scored in the three years Schottenheimer was their OC.

"Going to Seattle was, I would say, critical to my development as a coach," Schottenheimer said at the most recent NFL Owners Meetings. "Pete Carroll challenged me in a number of ways. He challenged me to be authentic, to continue to dive into the relationships that matter, which is your coaches, your players, ownership.

"He challenged me offensively, to be honest with you. … The [Sean] McVay, [Kyle] Shanahan style was taking off, and in Seattle we were competing against Sean and Kyle. So, he was pressing me. I just really feel like things changed for me when I went with Pete. I learned a ton from my dad … but Pete Carroll sharpened my edge and sharpened my view on what I want."

What does "competing" mean to Pete Carroll?

It's a word he has quite literally made into a way of life. He was notorious for holding "Competition Wednesday" during practice weeks, getting his team involved in several on-and-off the field activities ranging from position drills to shooting competitions.

But competing expands past what his players his staff can do physically. It also goes deeper than wins, losses and individual milestones on a stat sheet.

"I think other people think that's so much about the person you're going against," Quinn said. "But it's really to see how good you can become at something; how good you can do things. That's also competing. And he just didn't back off that."

To sum it all up: Carroll's definition of competition is striving to be the best version of yourself. Your true self. Your authentic self.

That's what's led to years of success for himself, his players and his coaching tree.

"There's something to get out of every day and Pete would say this tongue in cheek, 'Sometimes kicking ass today is just hanging out with your shirt off with some board shorts on at the beach.'" Canales said. "And you're crushing that day because that's time to relax and spend time with your family. It's a lifestyle mindset and hopefully, that's what he saw in me as a young kid that didn't know anything about football, that this guy is trying to learn everything and he's running around and just loves life. The type of players who just love to play the game, it jumps off the film."

"He really made you think in your own way and your own space, and I really appreciate that and try to pay that forward to people I work with now knowing he did that for me," Quinn added. "It's bigger than just his tree, because now if you show somebody that way it can extend past that with people I've had an impact on because Pete had that on me."

In the Raiders' 2025 NFL season, Carroll will face two of his former coordinators during Week 3 in Maryland and Week 11 on Monday Night Football. He doesn't take these opportunities to face his former colleagues for granted and has great pride in watching their success from afar.

But as you all should know by now, it's all about competing. For Carroll, the main thing remains the main thing.

"We've got to win the game. Win the game and everything is OK," he said with a grin. "They'll be able to share a lot with their team about what we're about, which is fine with me. But those games won't be different than any other games to me. But I love knowing we're playing against the guys that I've been with.

"It's like playing with your kids. I like competing with my kids too. It feels kind of the same."