Posted by ESPN.com’s Ted Miller

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Â	AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian
Â	Pete Carroll and the Trojans have their sights set on a Pac-10 title.

LOS ANGELES — Sat down with USC coach Pete Carroll on Sunday night. He ate ice cream and answered questions.

What’s your feeling on this scenario: Let’s say Mitch Mustain starts at quarterback against Virginia and has a lights out game. Do you have a philosophical opinion on whether an injured starter [Mark Sanchez] always retains his job or do you go with the hot hand against Ohio State?

Pete Carroll: I would never… I can’t even answer a question about that. To surmise what’s going to happen with one guy and then what we’re going to do with the next guy? I wouldn’t even tell you what the first stage of it is let alone the second or third. So I’m not going to answer that. Too much conjecture there.

You talk about getting better and growing every year. What have you changed in the past couple of years about how you do things?

PC: Not very much. We do mostly the same stuff with just small changes. It depends on our staff continuity. This year, we’ve got 99 percent staff continuity so it’s really easy [only staff change was the GA who works with the secondary]. We’re able to do more things with that. When we’re bringing new people along, we can’t do that. We can’t afford to go off and experiment. This year, we’ve done more things but it’s kind of like if you have a philosophy then why would you change? The consistency is part of the philosophy — how you recruit, where you recruit, who you recruit. The consistency of what the expectations are, the consistency of the standards for practice, the offseason programs. All of those things are the same. We get better at them. We get better versed on knowing what we want and getting more astute as we go along but we don’t change much.

I know this is going to sound pretty stupid, but you’re the only coach who can be asked this: Is winning the Rose Bowl ever not enough?

PC: No. You’ve got to understand that our mindset is to focus only on what we can control. We can only control getting to the Rose Bowl. Winning our conference and going to the Rose Bowl is what our goal is every year. Our goal isn’t about national championships, because we don’t have control of that — that’s in somebody else’s hands. We found that out years ago [2003], when we were No. 1 but then we were No. 3. We already knew that but that just proved it. If we win our games and we’re out there and they want us to go somewhere else, then we’ll go. We love the Rose Bowl.

Does it ever register with you that there’s such a small margin for error for USC that if you don’t win the national championship then some believe it hasn’t had a successful season?

PC: I know people say that but I don’t care. They can say whatever they want.

Could you give me a couple of names of younger guys who have stepped up in preseason practices?

PC: A guy who’s had a really good camp is Travon Patterson, a wide receiver. He’s caught touchdowns on every big day, every big scrimmage we’ve had. He’s playing fast and has made a lot of plays for us. The guys who have done a lot of good stuff are the freshmen — [TE] Blake Ayles is a guy you might not have expected to but he’s looked great. The other guy is [RB] Allen Bradford. He’s had a great camp again. I really like [WR] Jordan Cameron. All four of the freshmen defensive linemen [Armond Armstead, Jurrell Casey, Wes Horton and Malik Jackson] — they look great. These guys have a chance to play early. Uona Kaveinga has been playing second-team “Mike” linebacker. [Safety] Drew McAllister has looked really good — he’s had three or four picks in big, scrimmage-type situations and hit well. It’s been a really solid freshmen class. The offensive linemen have looked good but it’s going to take them some time.

Things get a little juicer in Part II, when Carroll talks about new UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel, his future and what he thinks of his legacy.