Not long after Lizzy Canales urged her husband to consider college coaching, he was able to land a position coaching tight ends and special teams, then later quarterbacks at El Camino College. While at that job, Canales connected with Steve Sarkisian, then an assistant under Carroll at USC and a former quarterback and coach at El Camino. That connection led to Canales getting an invite to help at USC's offseason camps.

"Just wanting to learn more brought me to USC to learn from Coach Carroll," said Canales, who was still teaching high school English while coaching at El Camino. "I just went there to learn, and every year I'd be there every Tuesday during the offseason. I didn't know any opportunities were going to come up, I just wanted to be better at my junior college. That created a relationship where Pete hired me. I was teaching 12th grade English, like last-chance English. I was sitting there and Pete called me on the phone and gave me that opportunity."

Since that phone call, Canales has worked various roles for Carroll both at USC and in Seattle, most recently as an offensive assistant working with quarterbacks, and before that working with Brown and the receivers.

"I felt very fortunate to be able to have learned from Kippy," Canales said. "The success that we've had, to be able to roll into that with those two years of experience with Kippy, I just feel really comfortable. Then also there's the (receiver) room; the guys that are here started when I was working with Kippy in 2011, Doug (Baldwin) and Ricardo (Lockette), then Jermaine (Kearse) came the year after that, so I had a chance to work with him. So yeah, I feel a really cool level of comfort with this group, like we grew up together."

And Canales feels like he is prepared for the next step in his career in no small part because of the man he is replacing.