ESPN: UCLA Is Poster Child For Pac-10 Stuggles
If there are still some nuts that think Karl Dorrell deserves to stay on as our football coach, then we will have to consider them lost forever. UCLA’s football brand has been taking a beating. This time, Ted Miller of ESPN.com calls UCLA the poster team for the struggles within our conference. Nice. Thanks Karl. Thanks a lot. Miller:
Next to the Trojans’ face plant, UCLA’s tumble is the worst. With 20 starters back from a team that upset USC a year ago, the Bruins billed themselves as national title contenders in the preseason. But injury woes at quarterback — a redshirt freshman walk-on took most of the snaps against Notre Dame — have resulted in an inconsistent, often bumbling offense supported by a surprisingly pedestrian defense.
Surprising only if you haven’t followed UCLA football as closely as we all have. The good news is, it’s now a forgone conclusion everywhere just about that Dorrell is on the hot seat. More Miller:
For a change, Arizona isn’t having quarterback problems. But everything else has gone wrong, and that’s caused Mike Stoops to join UCLA’s Karl Dorrell and Washington State’s Bill Doba on the coaching hot seat.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:08 am
More MSM: Daily News, PAUL OBERJUERGE
“These are dangerous times for the Dorrell Regime.”
October 12th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I think I see a trend here. In the past four seasons that Dorrell has been on the job, three have been highlighted with a mid-season losing streak. Dorrell’s teams are not coached, trained, or conditioned well. They play the opening season games against set-ups, win a majority of those games, and then, when the other PAC-10 teams have improved, his cannot play up to the higher standards. Below is a summary of the fruits of my research — I invite fact-checking and correction. But, as things shape up now, it looks like this season will turn out like the other three.
Oh, by the way, some highlights are:
(1) being outscored by USC 151-78
(2) going 1-3 in four mid- to low-tier bowl games.
(3) No PAC_10 championships or BCS finishes as
promised by Dorrell and Guerrero.
(4) His 10-2 season was punctuated (as I recall)
by some truly lucky, last-minute wins; those
10 victories put him above the .500 level his
other teams tend to play at.
(5) This is a program who now employs a coach
who was arrested and charged with a felony
and had a criminal record; Dorrell had full
knowledge of this when the man was hired:
http://www.fanblogs.com/ucla/007065.php
Past Season Analysis:
2003: 6-7 for season
6-2 up until 10/25/2003
0-5 for remainder of season
USC 47, UCLA 22
Fresno State 17 UCLA 9 (bowl game on 12/30/2003)
2004: 6-6 for season
5-1 up until 10/9/2004
2-5 for remainder of season
USC 29, UCLA 24
Wyoming 24 UCLA 21 (bowl game on 12/23/2003)
2005: 10-2 for season
8-0 up until 10/29/2007
1-2 for remainder of season
USC 66, UCLA 19
UCLA 50 Northwestern 38 (bowl game on 12/30/2005)
2006: 7-6 for season
4-1 up until 10/7/2006
0-4 from 10/14/2007-11/4/2007
3-1 for remainder of season
UCLA 13, USC 9
Florida State 44 UCLA 22 (bowl game on 12/27/2003)