Karl Dorrell and UCLA Bruins

[haplesshobo]

I know this isn't going to be the PC thing to say; the progressive thing would be to support Dorrell cause he's black and there's not enough black coaches in college football. Heck, that's the reason why he got hired in the first place with no previous head coaching experience. Chancellor Carny just ate up the idea of hiring a black coach, even if it meant passing up better, more qualified candidates.

But, seriously, Dorrell needs to be fired, dumped, anything... Its so bad you ponder rooting for your team to lose if it that's what it takes to get a new coach and SC fans pretend to be UCLA fans to say that Dorrell shouldn't get fired. You couldn't help but have mixed emotions about last year's upset of SC- it was great to finally beat SC and cost them a chance at a NC but that euphoria was tainted with the knowledge that it also saved Dorrell's job that year and the year after that. With this season's schedule and talent and returning starters, UCLA should have been a top ten team this season.

Instead, UCLA just lost to a previously winless ND, the laughing stock of college football. Five bad teams had destoryed ND by 20+ points, where ND couldn't stop the run and its offense couldn't score. The only way UCLA would lose this game was with bad coaching. And, what does Dorrell do when his starting QB goes down and he has to rely on a walk-on, third string, freshman QB? Dorrell opened up the passing game, including throwing the ball on 4th and 1.

ND only had 140 yards of offense, and it only scored because of UCLA's turnovers on offense. For 20 of ND's points, on those 4 possesions, ND only needed to gain 24 yards. Those four turnovers and fumble could have been avoided by just running the ball. This is fucking football 101.

Its been five years, and there were serious growing pains as Dorrell got on the job head coaching experience. And, to be fair, he has gotten better but just not good enough for UCLA. He's still in over his head and overmatched.

[VV o n g B a]

ucla getting beat = hilarity. it was almost boring watching nd lose continually even tho i hate them. was wondering what shitty team would finally lose to them. turns out it was pac-10 team.

sorry...

[haplesshobo]

The sad thing is that I wasn't that surprised that UCLA lost to ND even though ND has to be one of the worst teams in college football.

And, then, last weekend, UCLA got destroyed by Washington State 27-7. Washington State!! The worst team in the Pac-10; they hadn't won a single game in the conference until UCLA. Washington State had been like giving up 40+ points a game, and UCLA only scores 7 points.

This has been the pattern for UCLA all season.

It gets destroyed 44-6 by a previously winless Utah team that had lost to Airforce the week before. A Utah team that needed to resort to its backup QB, RB, WR, TE and a backup OL.

Then, UCLA loses 20-6 to a otherwise winless ND that still hasn't won since that victory.

And, now, it again loses to another doormat with Washington State. This loss to Washington State actually surprised me. Since everybody had been predicting that UCLA would lose to a very bad Washington State team, I actually thought UCLA would win this game. Well, I guess Dorrell showed me!

Upsets happen all the time in college football where the weaker team rises up to slay the giant. But, in those game, its a tight game and a last minute play. You shouldn't get slaugheted like this.

And, now, I'm hearing that if Dorrell gets fired, they might just hire the African-American DC, Dwayne Walker and repeat the whole Dorrellian experience. As if we haven't taken enough hits for the sake of diversity...

[lethal]

I've heard rumors of Mike Leach from Texas Tech going to UCLA.

[haplesshobo]

Leach would be considered a minor disappointment by many if he was selected, but he might be the best option left. A lot of UCLA fans wanted Boise State's Petereson, and I was a really big fan of Navy's Paul Johnson.

When I was pulling for Dorrell's ouster, I assumed that UCLA was going to land a top notch head coach. Instead, UCLA is going through this politically correct coaching process while all the other coaching candidates are getting snatched up by other schools. The SEC is just loading up on top tier coaches, where even middle to bottom tier SEC teams are getting quality coaches.

And, now Norm Chow is going to interview for the UCLA job.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-uclacoach13dec13,1,627759.story?coll=la-headlines-sports

To be honest, I have some concerns about him as a HC.

[VV o n g B a]

To be honest, I have some concerns about him as a HC.what are they?

[yoMAMA]

what are they?

1. he's not white

2. HE'S NOT WHITE

3. HE'S NOT WHITE!!!!!!!!

[aznstud99]

i really hope norm gets a chance as a head coach of UCLA. The guy knows how to mold successful qb's (palmer, leinart, rivers) and ucla's qb's are perenial underachievers. The only problem with Norm Chow is that he's old, but even if he can put together four or five winning years he can show people that Asians can be leaders and HC too, not just x;s and o's coordinators.

[lethal]

Can Norm recruit? He's been in the NFL for a few years now and at USC, I get the impression that Pete Carroll did a lot of recruiting. The lifeblood of college football is the recruiting pipeline and that (moreso that the poor record) is what got Willingham fired at Notre Dame.

In college, the 2 things that a college coach does that an NFL coach doesn't have to do is recruit and raise money from boosters. Can Norm do that? He can obviously coach, that's not a question.

[haplesshobo]

1. he's not white

2. HE'S NOT WHITE

3. HE'S NOT WHITE!!!!!!!!

Dude, you probably don't know shit about college sports, much less about UCLA football. So, why don't you go back to the kids table if this is the most intelligent thing you can say.

what are they?

You've got to understand that after 5 years of Dorrell, there are two things that UCLA supporters insist upon for the next HC:

1) Somebody with HC experience
2) No West Coast Offense

Chow doesn't have the HC experience, and that's a big minus as it raises a lot of potential question marks about whether or not he can be a good HC. As lethal pointed out, recruiting is one of the most important things in college football. And, at SC, Chow did not want to play a role in that and said as much. Chow is one of the greatest OC in college history but that doesn't mean he'll be a good coach as there are plenty of great, Coordinators who couldn't make the transition as a head coach-Norv Turner, Buddy Ryan, etc... And, a college HC has to deal with even more shit with wooing alumni and boosters and recruiting.

I kind of question the fire in his belly to be a HC and do all the shit that comes along with it. If Chow really wanted to be a HC and knew that there were questions about his recruiting, why didn't he simply step up and play a bigger role in recruiting when he was at SC? Or, why not take the HC job when he was offered one and prove his critics wrong? If he had done fairly well for a year or two, he would have shot up to the list of any school he wanted. If Chow hasn't been willing to do that much to get a HC job, I have to wonder how much he'll put in once he does have a HC job locked up.

Plus, he's getting up there in age. He's 61 and if he needs a couple of years to grow into a HC job, how many years left will he have to coach at UCLA?

[haplesshobo]

I've heard rumors of Mike Leach from Texas Tech going to UCLA.

In the end, Leach wasn't even on the list of candidates who got interviewed even though he had the HC experience and he wanted the UCLA job.

Instead, the candidates were:

Norm Chow, with no HC experience

Dwayen Walker, with no HC experience (the same people pushing to save Dorrell's job are now the same people pushing for Walker)

John Harbaugh, defensive backs coach for the Phil. Eagles (brings back memories of Dorrell who was the WR coach for the Broncos)

Slick Rick N., the goldenboy who's the only one with HC experience but was handed two strong programs and destroyed them

Nobody has any idea why this was the list of candidates, esp. when the AD had promised that he would be looking for somebody with HC experience. And, as the AD was setting up these interviews, other programs were scooping up all the good, promising coaches.

I didn't expect UCLA to go after Rodriguez or Petrino, in part cause they would have been too expensive. But, Cutlife and Paul Johnson could have been had for a price that UCLA could have felt comfortable with- around 1.5M. How the hell did Duke end up with a coach like Cutlife, when its almost impossible to win at Duke, while UCLA can't get anybody? Some have speculated that some otherwise interested coaches were turned off because it was understood that the new coach would need to retain Walker on his staff, instead of bringing in his own assistant coaches.

And, according to reports, Rick is getting a second interview, this time with the Chancellor, and I believe Chow will get a second interview as well.

The one hope people are hanging onto, even though its not very realistic, is that the AD has some super-duper coaching candidate that he's keeping a secret cause that coach has a bowl game to prepare for.

[haplesshobo]

And, now, Norm Chow has taken withdrawn his name and thereby taken himself out of the running for the UCLA HC. Although, Chow probably did this once he realized he had no shot; he never got the second interview.

Chow released the following statement:

I appreciate the interest UCLA has shown in me and the opportunity to speak with them about the head coaching position. While I was told that our meeting went very well, I was given no indication as to what their final decision will be, or what their time frame is to make that decision.

Nevertheless, I have decided not to pursue things further with UCLA at this time. My focus is on the Tennessee Titans and preparing our team for a chance at the playoffs.

Chow must have blown another interview... By all accounts, the Stanford job was his untill he blew that interview. Some people have made the suggestion, although I'm not sure how fair it is, that Chow's poor interview skills is a sign that he'd be a poor recruiter. If he can't sell himself at an interview, then how can he sell himself as a coach to a potential recruit?

[Arex]

I don't know the first thing about coaching or recruiting, but I imagine selling yourself in an interview to a bunch of university suits and selling a program to a recruit still in high school would be two drastically different experiences.

Or they could be the exact same. What do I know.

[haplesshobo]

In the end, UCLA hired Slick Rick but it was pretty obvious that UCLA didn't really want him, but at that point, he was probably their best option left. UCLA had a chance to hire him at the very beginning, and a month later, was still looking and searching. It got so desperate that UCLA was going back to give Harbaugh a second interview at the end, even though they obviously didn't think highly enough of him the first time around. If Chow has stuck around, I think he could have had a good chance to get the job.

i really hope norm gets a chance as a head coach of UCLA. The guy knows how to mold successful qb's (palmer, leinart, rivers) and ucla's qb's are perenial underachievers. The only problem with Norm Chow is that he's old, but even if he can put together four or five winning years he can show people that Asians can be leaders and HC too, not just x;s and o's coordinators.

Now, that Jones has stepped down at Hawaii, this is probably Chow's best and last chance to get a HC in college. Stanford, BYU, and Hawaii are the three schools where he should have had an inside track, but it didn't work out at Stanford and BYU, so we'll see how it works out with Hawaii.

At Hawaii, the boosters issue would probably not be that big of a deal as other schools. Haole outsiders would probably have a harder time with boosters than a native like Chow. And, it won't be as competitive in terms of recruiting since Hawaii isn't competing for the same playmakers as the bigtime programs.

[haplesshobo]

With the hiring of Norm Chow as the UCLA OC, I take back my reservations about Rick Neuheisel. RN has made UCLA football relevant again, and exciting. Before, the only time you'd hear UCLA in the media was after another loss to a previously winless team.