Matt Sayles / AP

USC coach Pete Carroll walks off the field after losing 55-21 to Stanford on Saturday. Carroll had the perfect storm of an inexperienced front seven on defense, true freshman quarterback, and new offensive and defensive coordinators, NBCSports.com contributor Michael Ventre writes.

And coaches are human, even the highly paid ones, and there are some years when they just plain don’t do as good a job as they have in others.

This year, there are three marquee coaching names poised to grab two spots in the BCS championship game in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 7. Meyer and Saban will duke it out in the SEC title game, and the winner probably will play Brown’s Texas Longhorns, who should go unbeaten. Saban and Brown each have one national championship. If either wins, he will tie Meyer, thus foiling Meyer’s bid for three.

If, say, Saban wins a second, then he and Meyer will be recognized as being at the top of the heap, at least until they slip and fall down it, like Carroll has, and Stoops. But it’s safe to say that none would ever want to be another Jim Tressel.

He has one BCS title, and he has captured the Big Ten crown six times. But the perception is that Ohio State is the best of a weak bunch. Even if Tressel’s Buckeyes triumph in this year’s Rose Bowl game, he’ll still find himself looking up at the Mount Rushmore of Meyer, Saban, Carroll and Stoops — unless they all hit a sustained period of mediocrity and Ohio State surges toward dominance.

It’s not so farfetched. All programs are susceptible to slippage. All coaches are vulnerable to the vagaries of 18-to 22-year-old young men. All football teams have the capacity to shock the world, for better or worse.

If Urban Meyer wins a third BCS championship, he will elevate himself to a perch in his profession where barbs and arrows can’t reach him. Until he falls from it, that is.

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