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But now here he is as the Raiders coach getting to see if all those efforts pay off when Las Vegas opens its season Sunday at New England.

“This has just been so much fun, really, to get into this with this club and this ownership,” Carroll said. “With all the challenges that go along with that, to be able to create our own roster with all that freedom that we got. (General manager John Spytek) and I really feel great about the process that we’ve gone through.

“We continue to compete, to add to it. It’s worked out really well, and it represents the hard work that we put in. It represents the time. It represents the culture and philosophy that we’re standing for.”

As the NFL’s oldest active coach — Carroll turns 74 on Sept. 15 — there certainly is a curiosity about what to expect as he tries to . A franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game since appearing in the Super Bowl in the 2002 season and one that went 4-13 last season.

There is a lot of newness for Carroll, who spent 23 years at his two most recent stops. that included consecutive Super Bowl appearances and one championship for Seattle and two college football national titles for Southern California.

But even in those places, there had to be a beginning.

At USC, Carroll was in prove-it mode after coming up short in the NFL with the New York Jets and Patriots.

Then after re-establishing the Trojans as one of the nation’s elite programs, Carroll gave the NFL another shot with the Seahawks in 2010. It didn’t start out so well as Seattle went 7-9 each of his first two seasons before Carroll turned it around.

“There’s a lot of similarities, the rhythm of putting the team together, implanting the way we think and the way we operate and what’s behind the philosophy,” Carroll said. “But because of where I am in my career, it’s just such a joyful opportunity to me. I’m thrilled to be part of this place and in the position where it looks like all odds are against you.”

The Raiders have been searching for a coach who can help them recapture their past glory. Carroll is their fifth full-time or interim coach since moving from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020.

Maybe that revolving door ends with Carroll and the club finally finds some of the same stability and sustained success he brought to USC and Seattle.

He is in Las Vegas trying to show he still can coach at this stage in his career and has talked about overseeing a roster of players in similar positions. One of those is quarterback Geno Smith, who under Carroll in Seattle, but said at his introductory news conference that he has “unfinished business” after how his time with the Seahawks ended.

“We don’t ever want that chip on the shoulder to leave,” Smith said Wednesday. “I’ll always have that for the remainder of my life. I was born with it, and we’ve got a lot of guys on this team exactly like that. So, yeah, we want to be that team with something to prove, and I think we have a lot of reasons to have something to prove.”

The players also know jobs won’t be handed to them. They enter the team facility each day under the words “Always compete.”

That explains why there were some surprises in training camp, including at cornerback where third-year pro Kyu Blu Kelly and his zero career starts is listed first team at cornerback.

“You’ve got to bring it,” Kelly said. “Your job is up (for competition) every single day. You can’t get complacent in this business and especially on this team.”

Constant competition is at the heart of Carroll’s approach, and he has said it’s crucial to have a philosophy that carries from employer to employer. But he also understands the importance of flexibility, and he used the past year off to think about how he might adjust his approach if given the chance to again coach a team.

That time arrived in Las Vegas — and now it’s game week.

“I’m really excited about seeing the results,” Carroll said. “We’ll see what happens. But the new feeling about a new program and a new culture, all of that is the same.”

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