[terry]

I think the importance of the "we bow to no program" stuff has been wildly exaggerated. . . .

What Carroll did care about, I'm certain, were Harbaugh's public statements during his first season that everybody knew Carroll was headed to the NFL and wouldn't be around the next year.

Those two things were parts of the same sequence of events in the spring of 2007. Harbaugh told a reporter that he heard Carroll would be leaving U.S.C. in a year for the NFL. Carroll denied it, and was rather snippy about it. Reporters then asked Harbaugh if he was going to call Carroll to apologize. Harbaugh refused to apologize, saying "We bow to no man. We bow to no program here at Stanford University." The two comments were made less than a week apart. I definitely think both comments by Harbaugh got under Carroll's skin. And I agree, Monte Poole got it wrong when he traces their conflict back only to "what's your deal" in 2009.

[terry]

I think the importance of the "we bow to no program" stuff has been wildly exaggerated. . . .

What Carroll did care about, I'm certain, were Harbaugh's public statements during his first season that everybody knew Carroll was headed to the NFL and wouldn't be around the next year.

Those two things were parts of the same sequence of events in the spring of 2007. Harbaugh told a reporter that he heard Carroll would be leaving U.S.C. in a year for the NFL. Carroll denied it, and was rather snippy about it. Reporters then asked Harbaugh if he was going to call Carroll to apologize. Harbaugh refused to apologize, saying "We bow to no man. We bow to no program here at Stanford University." The two comments were made less than a week apart. I definitely think both comments by Harbaugh got under Carroll's skin. And I agree, Monte Poole got it wrong when he traces their conflict back only to "what's your deal" in 2009.