Great, Great Work. Let’s consider doing more ads after KD is fired. THe issue is the UCLA administration. KD is only the effect. To focus our attention on the effect only is to ignore the cause. We must continue to call out the UCLA Administration. Once KD is fired, let’s be sure to embarrass them by calling them cheap and by exposing the long list of failed hires.

Something along the lines of breaking the cycle would be a nice touch. We’ll point out how those poor hires were coaches that came at a bargain and were deficient on experience.

The ads were not paid for by 105 men. The Bruin football team. An absurd show of dirt and an absurd executive decision by dump dorrell. destroyed any credibility with 2 games left. Possibly the dumbest marketing error if I have seen in my career in politics and marketing. Ad donors, ask for a refund. It was a huge huge huge huge error in judgment. Dirty, bad, in poor tasted, and not kind. Karma. What goes around will come around. Karl is a human being and a kind person. He has a family and a heart. This was not human and just plain bad form. It was a crackback block to a fellow Bruin. Classless. I am ashamed of the Daily Bruin.

Brian Theriot
Captain
1980

Mr. Theriot,

With the greatest respect, I fail to see how the open letter placed in the Daily Bruin is an “absurd executive decision” nor how it “destroys credibility”.

Marketing involves, among other things, the selling of a product or service to customers. The contributors and participants on this web site are customers or potential customers of an entertainment product being sold by UCLA: their football team. Many here are either expressing their displeasure with the product they have purchased or are letting the purveyor of that product know that they believe it inferior and that they will not purchase it while the firm is under its present management.

Admittedly, some here offer their opinions in unfortunately crude and offensive terms, but they remain potential customers of the product nonetheless. For the record, I sincerely hope that Mr. Dorrell is relieved of his responsibilities as head coach and — more importantly — that the athletic director sees fit to hire a coach with the ability to take the UCLA program to national prominence. By the way, whenever I post to here or other venues on the subject of Mr. Dorrell’s being put out to grass, I refrain from using nicknames or anything derogatory as it cheapens any points I wish to advance.

Similarly, the Daily Bruin is a business and offers space to advertisers, the only restriction being good taste based on community standards. Being politically conservative, I often remember — with great frustration — the articles and advertisements placed in the DB’s pages that opposed my point of view. Nevertheless, they and their advertisers were perfectly within their rights to publish that material so long as it did not trespass into bad taste.

Mr Dorrell may be a fellow Bruin (and I acknowledge his fine play in the 80s), but he is also a person who was hired with the expectation that he could deliver a PAC-10 championship and possible BCS bowl birth and paid handsomely to do so. These are not criteria we made up, these were enunciated by Mr Dorrell and Mr Guerrero themselves when Karl took the job. Clearly and by any measure, he has not performed up to these criteria during his five years’ tenure. Moreover, there is little promise of his doing so..

..hence, the frustration that led a number of people to pool some $2,500 and place the advertisements in the Daily Bruin. As the cliche in many gangster movies goes, “This is not personal, it’s just business.”

All of that having been said, I personally appreciate your opinion and respect your point of view and would like to express my gratitude for your contributions to one of my favorite Bruin endeavors — Track and Field. We are also grateful for your son’s efforts on this year’s football team.

W. Phinizy (UCLA ‘68)

Mr. Theriot-

We have done nothing wrong. We have expressed our opinion on what’s been going on with UCLA. Additionally, we’ve not threatened KD or his family, so I just don’t see what his family has to do with this. After he’s fired, he and his family will be just fine with nearly 3 million dollars.

I understand what it’s like to play sports at UCLA. I did it during my time there, and adversity was never far away, but didn’t mean we were beyond criticism.

Why do you believe KD is beyond criticism when he’s heading up a Multi-Million Dollar Program and is making millions from it?

Yes, the money is at issue here, because when you’re spending that kind of money results beyond coaching kids that don’t get into trouble is a MUST!

Is it unfair for us to want a Title? Is it bad for us to want to see our team play well? If you’re a true Bruin, then you will realize the incredible importance in beating our rival and not allowing USC to out-do us.

I respectfully disagree with your stance. Frankly, you’re far too close to the program to have an objective opinion.

Diego
1997

Just got done watching SuC trounce ASU. The sight of Ken Norton Jr. dressed in SuC colors and coaching them on the sidelines, and acknowledged by the announcers as a former Bruin is not only grossly embarassing but turns my stomach. Also, didn’t Wendell Tyler’s son, a top prospect sign with
SuC? Reminds me of Luke Walton and Mike Bibby playing for ‘Zona during Lavin’s tenure. These were all legacies and should have been Bruins. Disgusting.

Like it or hate it the ad is and was effective. Change is always difficult, but inevitable. I am sure Dorrell is a decent guy, but I am also sure he isn’t a good college football coach. He does not have the skills required of him to run a major college football program, other than into the ground. When UCLA loses Saturday to a banged up and limping Duck team, that should mark the end of the Dorrell era in Westwood. Let’s hope so, anyway. UCLA 17 Oregon 34

Over on BruinsNation.com, “Mark the Bruin” posted this:

“I can’t find any BBall tickets for Friday’s game except for section 308/9 which is nosebleed [seats] behind the backboard. I’ve got my FBall tickets, though. No problem getting those.”

This, I guess, underscores the fact that UCLA athletics is a business subject to the principles of marketing and desirability of product, etc. Pretty soon, unless another regime is appointed stewardship of the football team, there will be plenty of seats available in the Rose Bowl.

Diego, I hope you understand that the university may not be cheap but it must be frugal and must understand what WE (the contributors) are willing to pay in order for the university to spend the additional millions for that experienced, known coach that most of us would like. My question to all of you, are you willing to pay the potential 10% - 20% increase to your Wooden Athletic fees and the increase inticket cost without complaining?

russ, I’m most definitely willing to pay that. Here’s the issue, though. When an Athletic Department takes money from the fan base like that, then the fans will begin to claim ownership. If things start going wrong, there will be fans that will say that they’ve paid for the coaching change, so they need to be heard.

It’s up to the Administration to kick in the money. PERIOD!

As a current student at UCLA I came in to the UCLA football program as we finished the season 6-6. We then went the following season 10-2. As not only a student but as a person who watches college football religiously I would like to say Karl Dorrel is one hell of a football coach. His ability to maintain a non-chalant personality on and off the field I believed to be incredibly important in any coach who leads an athletic program. However, there is no NICE way to say that we need a coach that can not only command respect from the press and players, but a coach with a creative mindset, and an unbelievable drive to take us to BCS bowl championships. We are NOT only a basketball program, We are UCLA, We are a powerhouse in EVERY sport… except football? While our impressive displays in every sport are important why can’t we hire a coach that can bring us to contend with schools such as Ohio State, LSU, USC, Michigan (which has saved its season despitelosing to Appalachian State) We have an amazing defensive coordinator (Dewayne Walker) who completely changed our miserable 2005 season defense ( Thank you Mr. Walker for your continued excellence in that aspect). And we also have a what I hope to be a great offensive coordinator (Jay Norvell) which once we add depth to our offense will not be a probem. We need a coach that will not just ride off of his coordinators success. Yes, Karl Dorrell did take over coaching our offense last year…Did anyone see our offense last year? If it wasn’t for our quarterback who for some reason runs better than most of our running backs, how would we have beaten USC? No matter what, I believe UCLA will be a great team next year with at the very least a top ranked recruiting class.

I believe our desire to hire a new head coach has little to do with race, it has to do with success. Frankly I know that most students and alumni would be content with a coach of any ethnicity coaching our team as long as he provides a winning season putting UCLA on the map, and at the very least putting us on Sports center which I don’t care how you view the USC stuffed ESPN analysts, does give good publicity to any athletic program.

I would like to say that Dorell opened the door in hiring our coordinators who for the most part have contributed the most to our defenses success and our soon to be explosive offense. I would like to say though that when we were going 10-2 in almost all those games we were down miserably until the 3rd and in most cases the 4th quarter and we would miraculously come back. While these were amazing games to go to I lost count to how many heart attacks I could have at the rose bowl.

Finally I would like to say that I have supported Dorrell until this season. I was defending him from my fraternity brothers, family, and of course collegiate friends who would say, “Dorrell brought the team from winless, to mediocre. But thats okay because UCLA is a basketball school.” WRONG, UCLA is a powerhouse and should be in every sport. Our amazing athletic director responsible for hiring Ben Howland (In Howland I trust), and even with hiring Dorrell which for at the time was a good decision, will need the support from Alumni, students and UCLA supporters. Should Dorrell have been allowed 5 seasons with a depth chart that was completely full of his recruits, sure (we have Maurice Jones-Drew) representing UCLA amazingly for the jaguars, while our rivals across the town are still filling out paperwork for the lawsuits against the Reggie Bush, Matt Leinhart catasrophy that will probably end with them signing away their national title. Aside from that we have Drew Olson (recently signing with the 49ers, Lord knows they need a quarterback now). And of course our heisman candidate kicker Justin Medlock, Mercedes Lewis, and all of our other successes coming out of our football program.

As a UCLA student, and I’m speaking for many, I will give Dorrell the credit he deserves, he was a good coach that moved us in the right direction, but he can’t finish the job he set out to do, 5 seaons in, and after losing to UTAH, NOTRE DAME (who lost to Navy and Army?????), Washington State and Arizona, ALL with not mediocre but terrible records, it is time for Dorrell to willingly step down, or at least move to Wide Receivers coach, that way our starting quarterback Ossar Rasshan will have someone to complain to when they move him back to wide receiver, jeeze…

“Dorrell brought the team from winless, to mediocre. But thats okay because UCLA is a basketball school.”

This part is not correct. UCLA wasn’t winless. Hell, Toledo did far better in his first years than KD has ever done.

In fact, Toledo was 7-4 when he was fired. Basically, Dorrell CONTINUED the mediocrity and actually made it a bit worse. At least under Toledo we were in the BCS (1998 we were the first ever team to be ranked #1 in the BCS). The first time that ESPN’s College Gameday came to the west coast was for the UCLA Oregon game in ‘98. Toledo had a 20 game winning streak and while playing a tough, tough schedule (some of the toughest at the time) he pulled some huge upsets (#3 Alabama, #3 Michigan, to name a few). How about winning two pac-10 titles? Above all of that, though, we were FUN! Direct Snaps to Freddy Mitchell who would either run it or throw it deep. How about the Double Reverse pass, Tab Perry to Brian Poli-Dixon? How about Throw back passes to Deshaun or Skip Hicks? Those were fun college teams. We haven’t had anything like that under KD.

KD took us from Mediocrity to… well, to more mediocrity.

Hey everybody…

This just in… Texas A&M Head Coach Dennis Franchione has resigned. After 5 Years as head coach, promising to raise their program to new heights, he finished 32-28. He promised greatness, BUT delivered MEDIOCRITY.

Now, does this sound familiar??? Hmm….. At least he went out beating the school’s arch-rival, the University of Texas Longhorns. I just hope Dip—t Dorrell will beat O.J.U., aka $UC, aka DIRT SC, before IDIOT GUERRERO is finally FORCED to terminate his ass.

At least Franchione saw the writing on the wall and quit before he got chucked. At least he demonstrated some degree of honor, some vestige of dignity. At least he didn’t play the RACE CARD and cried discrimination, bias, foul play, murder….etc. because of his ITALIAN lineage.

KEEP UP THE HEAT EVERYONE AND STAY SAFE DURING THE HOLIDAYS!!!

I hope Streeter and T.J. and the rest of those idiots get together to support Franchione.

KD’s problems
1) Only one elite recruit in his tenure , M Drew. Up until
this freshman class we lost every elite prospect to USC, CAL
etc..Our junior and senior class for next year is not filled with preseason all PAC 10 players. the outlook for next season is middle of the PAC at best.K Bell our best returning weapon will be recovering from a serious injury
and it is not a sure thing he will be able to perform at the level he performed prior to his injury at WSU

Ironically KD’s committments for 08 have elite prospects but they will be freshman so most will not be physically mature enough to play at an elite level as true freshman

The program needs another elite class in 09 to have the overall size, speed and depth to move up to being serious
PAC 10 contenders nevermind a BCS contender
size ,

2)No defensive scheme until D Walker was hired. this is
D Walkers defense not KD’s It is a gambling stop the run
defense that wil give up some big plays because they play
a lot of man and blitz their safties ,which is fine.

D Walker knows his stuff and can recruit.

3)Offensive scheme. KD is married to the Denver Broncos offense because this is what he knows.We need to embrace the modern era and use the spread option particularly
when you have QB’s like Rasheen and Cowan that can run.
KD has not been able to recruit the play makers that can make big plays in his scheme

The only big plays are on special teams. Where has Matt Slater been the last four years.

In short KD’s recruiting classes for 04, 05, and 06
are loaded with players that can not play at a high level in
the PAC 10.

And that will be a problem for the next two years for any coach, regardless of offensive scheme and motivational
abilities.

Hopefully thing will bottom out and the program will
get where UCLA needs to be, and should be.Their is too much
talent in southern california alone to accept anything less

It was absolutley in poor taste, and offensive… I agree one hundred percent, I think a billboard or anyother paper would have been more acceptable but at the sametime this site and the doners believed it was a necessary “evil”, because at your own university even when your on the hotseat I think there is a perceived good will towards your team, or fellow student, coach whatever , but having said that DG’s to blame and knew it was coming long before it was run and could of done what was inevitable (kissing KDouche goodbye) so he must have wanted it to run. But yes poor taste it was.