August 28, 2007

TJ Simers: Karl Dorrell On The Hot Seat?

TJ Simers, whether you like him or not, does get local sports talk going with this columns. Today, he focuses his critical laser on Karl Dorrell. Simers:

He begins his fifth season at UCLA, as shocking a sports accomplishment in the L.A. area as anything else to happen over the last five years when you consider the fact he was in over his head from the start

Not everyone agrees with TJ on all things, or any thing, but what he writes here about Dorrell is now conventional wisdom. So much so that JA Adande of the LAT said Dorrell didn't have the makeup of a champion last year after the SuC win, finally feeling safe enough to do so after the epic win. Simers notes that Dorrell has had to put up with criticism from the start (yep, you have no experience and get paid close $1 million, what do you expect?) but that Dorrell actually LIKES the criticism and the fact that his job is on the line:

"I like that," he says. "It's the chip on my shoulder. And that's OK; it keeps me on edge. I've operated my whole life that way: if I don't do my job, I'm going to get fired."

We love this! Dorrell is making every argument for us. He likes criticism … well then he must have no objection to DumpDorrell.com. Nice. There is one other thing Simers points to that's interesting - the bracelets. As you know, last year the embarrassing blue bracelets that Dorrell had the team wear that said "Pac-10 Champions" on them were cut off by early October. We thought that after that fiasco that Dorrell would not be having the team wear them this year. Not so. We saw the players wearing white bracelets at the Scrimmage, though we could not see what was written on them. Guest Blogger Jake noticed them too. Simers confirms:

A year ago everyone in the football program wore a blue wristband, a reminder of the team's goal to win the Pac-10 title, but it's probably not a good sign if they needed to wear a wristband to remind them of such a thing.

This year the band is white, and it reads: "Finish Pac-10 Champs."

Ok, not as cheezy as last year, but still as Simers points out it's a bad indicator. To explain, Dorrell offers a classic Dorrellian inspirational line: