Ryan Kartje details success and ‘institutional hubris’ of 2000s USC football in ‘House of Troy’ podcast
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No other college football team will ever be quite like the USC Trojans in the 2000s.
They won back-to-back national championships and came close to an unprecedented threepeat, while dominating pop culture. Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell hung around the program, and rumors circulated that Matt Leinart was dating Paris Hilton.
USC was THE football team in Los Angeles when no NFL teams were in the city. But it all came crashing down, in part because of a series of allegations, from the Reggie Bush saga to the Varsity Blues scandal.
LA Times Studios has a new podcast called House of Troy. Los Angeles Times USC beat writer Ryan Kartje examines what happened to one of college football’s greatest runs, drawing on more than 100 interviews over the past four years. The podcast is a 10-part series, and its first episode was released on Sept. 22.
We spoke with Ryan Kartje about his reporting on the rise and fall of USC’s 2000s dynasty.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
How did this idea first come about?
Ryan Kartje: “I joined the USC beat in 2019, and the football program, but really the whole university, was in a bad place. My time watching college football as a kid, when I was most into it, was in the early 2000s. That was Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, and all these amazing personalities. And I kept wondering, ‘How did we get here?’ This used to be a completely untouchable program, something unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. And now it had just become a punchline after the tarmac at LAX, Steve Sarkisian, Varsity Blues, all of that. So I started looking into it more and learning stories I didn’t know about.
“Even during the glory years at USC, one of the things that really started me on this path was learning how mad people were when Pete Carroll was hired. I think people forget just how lucky some of these decisions had to be to lead to kind of what happened at USC. I think USC has learned over the last 10 years or so that, certainly, you can’t just roll the ball out there and recreate what you had back in the glory years.”
Why should someone listen to this podcast?
“I think everyone loves a good rise-and-fall story. But I think it’s so much more than a sports story. As I started reporting on this and writing the scripts, I found I wasn’t even really using the games. Obviously, there are some big games along the way, but there’s so much palace intrigue behind the scenes. People double-crossing each other, and the power struggles between boosters at the university and the athletic director. And a lot of facts are still contested to this day, from the Reggie Bush saga to even going back to Varsity Blues. So there’s so much there that hasn’t been reported. I’ve talked to everyone. I’ve talked to the main players, including Pete Carroll, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White, Lane Kiffin, Ed Orgeron, and a bunch of behind-the-scenes people too.”
Twenty five years ago, USC football needed a new direction. After striking out several times, USC settled on a failed NFL coach no one wanted at the time, Pete Carroll.
And he ended up changed everything.
From @latimes, this is House of Troy, Chapter 1 https://t.co/rXoEOmyY4H
— Ryan Kartje (@RyanKartje) September 22, 2026
Were you able to get most of the key people to talk?
“In the case of Reggie Bush, it’s a little more complicated. He did talk to us for a bit. We have spoken to him in bits and pieces over the years we have reported on this. He did not sit down to answer detailed questions about everything that happened in his saga. Who we did speak with, though, were multiple members of the fledgling agency forming around Reggie Bush, one of whom, Lloyd Lake, has alleged and continues to allege that he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush and his family. So, I think we add a lot of context to that. Some people who haven’t been on the record about the whole case speak in one of our early episodes.”
Could you elaborate on Pete Carroll not being USC’s first choice?
“We spoke to the other guys who turned it down: Dennis Erickson and Mike Bellotti. Mike Riley was the other finalist at the time and said he wanted the job. We’ve talked to other people around that time who were telling everyone, ‘This is a disaster. We don’t trust our athletic director to find this person. This whole search has been chaos.’ And they just sort of tripped their way into one of the greatest college coaches of all time.”
What did you find most illuminating in your conversations with Pete Carroll?
“A lot of things, actually. One, and this is covered in the first episode, was his disagreements with offensive coordinator Norm Chow. I know that in 2004, or so, everything was peachy keen at USC. They went undefeated and won a national championship. But behind the scenes, there was a clash between Pete and Norm. Pete told me it was his offense, not Norm Chow’s, behind the ’04 title: the Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White attack. He held strong to that point, even all these years later. We spoke to Norm about it. He was a little bit more respectful, I would say, to Pete. But you can tell that Norm was hurt by all that at the time.”
What else did Carroll have to say?
“With Steve Sarkisian, (Chow) brought him in. That was his guy, whom he plucked from being a software salesman. Then Sarkisian ends up taking the job from Norm Chow. So a lot of drama. Pete talked a little bit about the Reggie Bush situation, reflecting on what they maybe should have known at the time. So I think it was a pretty honest, transparent version of Pete. He hasn’t talked a ton over the years about his USC years. He maintains that he didn’t leave USC because of the NCAA sanctions coming. USC fans can hear a little bit more about that in the second episode.”
What’s the most interesting detail you discovered?
“I don’t want to give away too much in later episodes, but I think, if we’re talking news-wise or just interesting stuff, like the connection between Ed Orgeron and USC’s primary donor, or one of the primary boosters at the time, Brian Kennedy, whose name is on the practice field, the behind-the-scenes drama between Brian Kennedy and Pat Haden, the athletic director at the time, was really interesting. I won’t give too much away. They really did not like each other. For a long time, Brian Kennedy was convinced that was why Ed Orgeron didn’t get the job. I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily true, but there was enough venom between these two men, certainly, that it had some implications going forward.”
What more did you learn about the famous USC vs. Texas national championship game?
“Just re-watching it, I was honestly surprised by how many moments there were where it’s just one little thing that changes, and suddenly USC wins that game handily—the Reggie fumble, a bizarre play that has never happened in any other context. Vince Young‘s knee being down. I think it’s pretty clear his knee was down, but the Rose Bowl replay equipment wasn’t plugged into the right TV feed. This is just stuff you can’t even make up. All of these things, like five of them, had to happen for USC to lose that game. That’s not to take away from Vince Young, who just played an absolutely otherworldly game.”
Does not completing the threepeat still haunt members of that Trojans team?
“I think a lot of them feel it took a long time to get over that. I know LenDale White, especially, took it really hard for a long time. One of those plays on fourth and two, he gets stopped. He told me he still replays that play every day in his head. We’re talking 20 years later. So a lot of people involved feel like that was a moment when things changed for USC and for them personally.
“Lane Kiffin that night is in his hotel room; he’s pissed because everyone else on the staff is celebrating. They’re like, ‘What a great run. We did a great job.’ And he’s like, ‘No, you guys don’t understand. We’re never getting back here again. This thing will never be recreated.’ He was right; 20 years later now, they still haven’t been back to the national title.”
What do you believe was the main reason for USC’s decline?
“I would say it was institutional hubris. This idea that we don’t have to think ahead. We don’t have to adjust. Everything will adjust for us. Talented players will keep coming. Our athletic department will keep growing. People will keep coming to the games. I think that certainly blew up in their face.”
“But I think if you ask USC fans, the more obvious reason is the NCAA sanctions in 2010. That’s certainly a part of it. You can’t deny that. Through Lane Kiffin’s tenure, and this is something we get into in the episode that deals with his time, the sanctions on the program were absolutely crippling. They really did affect what this program was able to do. Now I think USC made those issues worse through their decision-making. Many of those decisions then led to other bad decisions. I think that’s where you see this sort of escalating domino effect.”
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