July 12, 2007
Matt Hayes, Sporting News: UCLA Sleeper Title Pick
Matt Hayes, Sporting News, has gone the extra-mile this year to stump for his favorite mediocre coach Karl Dorrell. Hayes tips UCLA to be the sleeper national champion pick. Beat THAT LA Times!! We’re pretty sure not even anyone at Morgan Center could have thought this one up. Here is Hayes:
Apparently, my bud Tom Dienhart and I are the only non-West Coasters who think UCLA has enough juice to win the whole enchilada. Yet the only time the Bruins were mentioned in two days of work was during final predictions.
As Timmy B. turned to me, I stated USC and LSU would play in the BCS national title game. Then very quickly added — while veering from the script — UCLA is my sleeper team to get there.
Now, we agree with Hayes that UCLA DOES have enough “juice” to get there, we EXPECT to get there … but do we actually PREDICT we will get there??! Not so much. We have a coach that can’t coach. That is the problem. Expectations and predictions are two different things. Hayes predicts that his expectation will come true. He is a tool for thinking that … he must (still) be getting some payola from Dorrell.
You might remember Hayes as being the guy who wrote a huge fluff piece on Dorrell before last season, giving us a #9 ranking to boot. Well we all know how that turned out *cough* 7-6 choke job *cough*. He also called the hiring of new OC Training Jay Norvell as the “best move of the off-season” while noting that Norvell was only a great QB coach. Yeah, and perennial doormat Duke hiring former national championship game head coach Butch Davis, Arizona State hiring former national champion head coach Dennis Erickson, and Louisville hiring up and comer Steve Kragthorpe were definitely not as big of moves as Dorrell hiring a “great QB coach” with no play-calling experience as his new OC. Yeap, we are gonna … mmmnot go with Hayes on this sleeper pick idea.
