September 10, 2006
Happy Thoughts Don’t Move Chains: A Step Backward For Karl Dorrell
The Rice game showed that Karl Dorrell’s enthusiasm at the start of this season is not rooted in reality and that this season remains one in which he has to prove himself. In the short term, yesterday’s disappointment also calls into question the credibility of the Utah win and makes a win at lowly Washington suddenly an uncertainty.
When KD said that this was the best team he’s had in his four years one could just see Guerrero’s staff at Morgan Center tripping over themselves to get a press release out and get the beat reporters to cover it. “Watch out, USC - Dorrell is making UCLA a threat again,” began the PR and one article. Was this reasonable expectations for a program coming off a record, and breathless, 10 win season, or, a foreboding of a graceless fall to earth and reality?
Happy thoughts of a championship, a Pac-10 championship, permeated training camp. Players openly talked to the media of winning the Pac-10 this season with the admiring approval of the coaching staff. Confidence and ambition are admirable, and we as fans love it. But, as Kevin Modesti of LA Daily News pointed out, when a non-championship team loses its top passer, its top rusher, its top receiver, and its top yard-gainer and returns one of the worst defenses in the country, it’s difficult to take such happy thoughts seriously. And no expert did. This year the Bruins are expected by most polls to end up in the middle of the pack, of the Pac-10, fighting for a bowl game in some Southern swamp in the middle of December.
So that brings us to yesterday’s embarrassing performance against Rice. Lavin-like Dorrell supporters will make the case that “a win is a win” and point out how our running game has improved. For a 4th-year coach that is not fair. What’s fair is to take a look at his record and how he himself measures the progress of his program. The “best team he’s ever had” has just almost lost to one of the worst teams in the country; a team KD’s lesser team last year beat quite handily. Worse still, Rice has a new coach who last headed a program in 2000, as a high school coach, and he used his backup QB to nearly beat UCLA. If only KD did as well in his first two years as a head coach we might be singing his praises. We all know that the problem here was UCLA and not the rise of lowly Rice.
Predictably, KD’s assessment of the game carries the positive note:
“There’s disappointment when you have high expectations,” UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said.
We don’t blame KD for being positive or for having happy thoughts. That trait is admirable were it not for the glaring deficiency of his assessments of the up-coming season and this game. High expectations do not only come with one good season. High expectations come with coaching at UCLA! Unfortunately, there are more problems with this program than just this game against Rice. KD could have pulled the “rebuilding year” trump card out early, BEFORE the season, and we would have respected that, albeit begrudgingly. We say begrudgingly because KD has consistently been losing the recruiting battle every year. Nevertheless, we would have had more respect for him for being realistic. However, he said this was his best team yet and we have to hold him to this assessment.
Without great talent, KD’s coaching must be what sets UCLA apart this season. KD admitted as much to his players at camp:
“You guys did your part,” Dorrell says. “It’s time for the coaches to do ours.”
Yes, it is time. KD and everyone at Morgan Center and Spaulding Field need to take this dose of reality seriously. The Rice game put our Utah win under the microscope and calls into question its credibiility. Utah came in wanting to stop the rush, since our OL is formidable and our “rookie” QB was untested. That plan backfired when BO lit up the Utah secondary and the Utah coaching staff failed to adjust.
With a week’s preparation and game film in hand, the Rice coaching staff did the opposite. They planned to stop the pass and have our rushers beat them. Even as we racked up nearly 300 yards on the ground, the Rice game plan nearly won out. And KD looked outcoached, again. The obvious question is: what will other, and better, coaches and teams do with now two weeks or more of game film? KD and Co should be worried. Hopefully, they’ve stopped drinking the cool-aid, stopped with the Happy Thoughts game planning, and stopped with the fly-by-night play calling.
KD has a lot of work to do just to take a step forward again.
8 Comments on Happy Thoughts Don’t Move Chains: A Step Backward For Karl Dorrell
September 11, 2006
BillSouthBay @ 12:06 pm:
Harsh but accurate in my opinion. The athletic department did a good job when they hired Tommy Prothro, Dick Vermeil, and …………Bob Toledo when he had Rocky Long….. Other than that, it has been tough sledding. I was at a meeting years ago when Pete Dalis talked and the topic was attendance at games. He had all kinds of explanations like the drive time, the time of the game, the schedule, etc. Then he said, “well of course, winning would be helpful” (this was during Donahue’s latter 5-5 seasons)…… Where is the incentive to support in this sport? The habits of the athlete department seem to transcend time and $$.
DumpDorrell @ 10:51 pm:
Bill, interesting points. Im not surprised by your report of the meeting. There was this strange complacency when I was there in the late 80s, even though we had some good runs. Clearly, incentives are a problem for the football program. It starts at the top, do we want a competitive team?? If we do, then support should follow. Hiring a receivers coach, with no head coaching experience, is hardly an indication of support from the top. So, the hiring begs the question to be asked again … do we want to be competitive in football?? Im not convinced we do. Sanders, Vermeil… will we get such high caliber coaching again?? A Howland of football is still a dream.
September 12, 2006
BillSouthBay @ 5:42 pm:
If we go back to Prothro, he was a head coach at OSU (took two different teams to the Rose Bowl in succeeding years) and successful (had a Heisman Trophy winner in Terry Baker), then Vermeil had one OK year and one Rose Bowl year then gone to the pros, Pepper Rogers was another guy who couldn’t win the big ones (don’t remember if he was a head coach before or not), Donahue struggled in big games until he hired Homer Smith (Donahue was an asst. at Kansas). The old faithful loved Terry so he stayed forever, but when Smith left the last time, the team fell to mediocre ball but fortunately SC was going through regrettable coaches themselves and Terry beat them with his eyes closed. Toledo came with Rocky Long and they were terrific, but Toledo had been a head coach although he had struggled. As soon as Long left, it was how many points can we score because anyone can score on us.
So now we have another assistant alum who, I’ll bet, the athletic department will give a long leash to so he can “mature” into the job. It’s in the genes, I guess. No reason for this approach other than habit.
SoBayBruin @ 6:58 pm:
Bill,
I agree with all you have said. I think Prothro was the best football coach UCLA ever had (its a tossup with Red Sanders). In his first year he beat USC and beat #1 Mich State in the Rose Bowl. He also produced UCLA’s only Heisman winner, Gary Beban, in 1967.
The real problem in the athletic director. Pete Dalis is an idiot. He hired and then fired Harrick without a replacement in the wings and was forced to hire Lavin. He also hired another loser, Toledo. The best AD was Wilbur Johns, he fired himself as basketball coach and hired Wooden, then he hired Red Sanders as well. Dorrell was hired because he works cheap, it takes at least $2 million to get a really great coach, just ask Mike Garrett. Tedford makes more than Dorrell as he should.
DumpDorrell @ 7:21 pm:
I want to say that it can’t just be habit … Guerrero wasn’t around during all those coaching selections, who now associated with the program was?? And it can’t just be money that hurts us in getting a top football coach, because we obviously don’t have a problem getting great basketball coaches. But I have to think money plays a significant role. I just can’t quite figure this all out - if the money is not there then why??
September 13, 2006
BillSouthBay @ 9:13 pm:
Soon after Harrick got the UCLA job, I went to see him with some friends, for a noon run in Bel-Air and lunch at the student union. He was being politic, but I asked him squarely how he got the job (it wasn’t clear in the papers at this time). The answer was “I showed up here, since I had been an assistant for years and knew the staff. I announced I was here to begin work and they told me my salary would be $55K/year until we could negotiate a contract. The athletic department is run by committee and they are a little screwed up”. Remember this was the time when UCLA had been turned down by high profile coaches and they were in a quandry. Harrick knew this and jumped at the chance. In my mind this explains Dalis’s nonacceptance of Harrick socially later…. he never wanted him in the first place regardless of the national championship. Arrogance?? Closed mind? Rigid thinking? Too long as AD? I think so.
BillSouthbay @ 9:15 pm:
As I remarked in the other post, the department is run by committee. Why isn’t Pete Blackman more involved? He is certainly competent and I know personally he “gets it”. It may be bigger than any one person. You know all the sayings about committee management…….
September 14, 2006
DumpDorrell @ 10:06 pm:
That is an interesting bit of information about how Harrick got the job. I remember those times. I thought we hit a new low when it became so difficult to get a replacement for the best college basketball job in the country. I respect Harrick more for having the gall, but it reinforces the concern I have with the entire process there at Morgan Center. It makes me wonder if we will ever get a top coach for football.