Tressell was hired at Ohio State in late 2000. Pete Carroll Carroll's first year at USC was 2001. He was consultant for over a year before he got USC job. Carroll was the the 4th of 5th pick to head up USC, who at that point had fired Paul Hackett who was dreadful, who succeeded Larry Smith who was almost as bad. USC was a bad program and Carroll still wasn't the guy USC really wanted. After all, he had just been fired in the NFL. It is a counterfactual that just doesn't work. No rational person would have thought Sean McVay should be hired at the Rams. Hell, Pete Carroll wanted that job too.
Chris Beard had two really good seasons at TT, everything else is hovering around 18-22 wins- basically Mike Woodson.