Bruin Fan Reponse: Dorrell’s Credibility Shot

Sometimes you come across a post on another site that says it all. We found one such post featured on BruinsNation by Bruin Blue. You may have already read it, but we wanted to get it on our site for the record. It's good, after the jump.

He would have already fired Dorrell twice by now. Think about it. Here is Dorrell, stepping into the UCLA job, saying he's ready to go, predicting a conference championship in his first year. He fires a number of the holdover coaches, brings in his own guys. Hires his own offensive and defensive coordinators. One 6-6 year later (not quite a conference championship there), he fires the OC he had just hired, saying that a different direction was needed. Two years after that, he fires the original DC he had hired–different direction needed, of course. His second OC decides he would rather be a position coach in the NFL than an OC at UCLA, so off he goes. Dorrell promotes the man he had hired as QB coach (who had won an award in that role) to OC. A year later, he fires him, relying on his favorite phrase about a different direction being needed.

Meanwhile, Dorrell himself, with no conference titles, no BCS Bowls, 29-21 in four years, loves to talk about how we're building, going in the right direction. It's a long, slow process, this building–much more tedious than it was at USC, or Oklahoma, Ohio State, Georgia, Cal, et al. So we must be very, very patient with Dorrell as this goes on. But Dorrell shows no patience whatsoever with his assistants, whose careers and reputations are of course damaged when they are fired by him. If Dorrell's boss Guerrero was half as cold-blooded and self-interested as he is, he would have been fired after his second year–a new direction needed, you know. He would certainly have been fired after this last season–thanks for everything, Karl; but we really do need to go off on that new direction now. But no, he gets to stay, while relentlessly scapegoating anyone he can; until the year when he finally has that perfect concatenation of veteran players, easier schedule, short-term coordinators with ability; and he can have his one really good season. At which time, Dorrell, like many a company executive before him, will leave for a better job, having done what was personally necessary for him to look good, never mind the cost to others. In the Darwinian world of big-time football, that wouldn't be so awful–if only Dorrell were susceptible to the same rules that he chooses to apply to others.

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