My ear isn’t exactly close to the ground on this one. Not while living on Hong Kong Island where college football is well behind badminton on the list of popular sports.

But I have the Internet, and I can read blogs and news stories, and from what I’m seeing, something odd is going on out there:

Pete Carroll’s name is not coming up in regard to the batch of NFL coaching jobs.

That has never happened, before. Aside from after his first season at USC, the 6-6 thing in 2001.

Since then, a sure sign of Winter were the rumors of Pete being romanced by some NFL owner.

He was going to San Francisco. To Atlanta. To Miami. He was going anywhere he could get full control over a franchise because he wanted to be at the pinnacle of football — and that is the NFL, not USC. (I know that’s hard for Trojans to get their minds around.)

But now?

Has he turned down the league so often that it doesn’t come knocking anymore?

Is he seen as having been out of the league too long to be an effective NFL coach?

Do owners look at all the recent train wrecks that were college hires (Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier, Bobby Petrino, etc.) and now are shying away from college guys?

Are owners no longer willing to give one man the coach-and-GM title that Pete seems to think he needs?

Or does Pete look just too comfortable at what he’s doing?

I think Pete Carroll is a great college coach. And he has the record to prove it.

Pete Carroll was a barely above average NFL coach, however, going 33-31 with the Jets and Patriots. And owners may recall that.

Actually, this works out. For everyone. Let some random NFL coordinator have the NFL jobs. They all will be gone in five years, anyway. And probably less.

Pete has a Job for Life at USC, unless the Trojans got really off the rails with the NCAA …

And USC fans can look forward to who-knows-how-many years of “winning forever.”

Anyway, if Pete and the NFL are talking … it is really, really, really quiet.