We have called this game between our UCLA Bruins and the Arizona Wildcats this year’s version of the Monster.com Bowl - the losing coach of this game will most likely be looking for a new job at the end of the season. You may recall we picked the Arizona State game last year as the Monster.com Bowl game and the losing coach, Dirk Koetter, was indeed fired after ASU lost. Dorrell, as we know, kept his job. The epilogue to that story is the kind of epilogue we have envisioned for our Bruins - ASU hired an experienced proven winning head coach in Dennis Erickson who has taken the team to an undefeated season this year thus far and a #4 ranking!!

Mike Stoops has been absolutely horrible in his stint at UofA, and they had such high hopes for him. He needs to turn this season around for his Wildcats so that they have some chance to become bowl eligible. At 3-6 (2-4) Arizona must win out to realistically make a bowl game. That seems highly unlikely to happen, but if Stoops loses against Dorrell he will lock in yet another year without making a bowl game and that might be it for him.

Karl Dorrell, on the other hand, still has a shot to win the conference title! If we win out he can take his first championship. If he loses against Arizona that will pretty much cement another year without a conference title, and because this year was THE year with everything that was lined up for us, losing the shot at the title along with 3 embarrassing losses might push Dorrell over the edge and into free agency. Now even the Daily Bruin, once a base of support for Dorrell, is printing articles stating that Dorrell is on the hot seat. Daily Bruin sports editor David Woods:

Team reputation, coach’s career may hinge on upcoming road game against Wildcats … Arizona begins a run of must-win games for Dorrell. At 5-3 and 4-1 in conference, in a season where some were predicting UCLA as a dark horse candidate to get to the BCS Championship game in New Orleans, another bad loss to an unheralded team could spell the beginning of the end for the head coach.

Can’t get any more clear or close to home than that indictment in the school paper. So, although we have seen two games on our calendar against teams whose coaches were on the hot seat (Washington and Washington State) tomorrow’s game against Arizona is the real Monster.com Bowl. Seattle Post Intelligence reporter Ted Miller agrees:

THE END? One gets the feeling that UCLA’s showdown with Arizona could ring the final bell on the tenure of either Bruins coach Karl Dorrell or the Wildcats’ Mike Stoops.

Whomever loses tomorrow will most likely be out of job next year. You can book it!

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