The post-Dorrell era got started the way we all had hoped. Karl Dorrell gave a classy, welcomed, public statement. Thank you Karl! It already has gone a long way towards bringing the UCLA community back together. The inevitability and acceptance and gratitude he displayed are showing up brightly across the Bruin internet. That is a tribute to Dorrell. Thank you again Karl!
Dan Guerrero followed up with a great press conference that echoed some of the main talking points we have long pushed here at DD. Here is what he says about UCLA football and the constraints of winning here (we are borrowing heavily from Nestor and bruinhoo at BruinsNation): read more
We are overcome with so many thoughts right now … we are almost at a loss. We take no pleasure in firing a good man. But Karl Dorrell leaves UCLA over $6 million richer in just 5 years. As much as no person likes being fired, Karl Dorrell and his family will be fine. We do, however, take massive pleasure in knowing that our football program is alive again! We have a chance to make it great again as a new era begins. read more
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It all is so right … the Dorrell era coming to an end. We will be playing in the Las Vegas bowl … the same bowl we got an invitation to the year Bob Toledo was fired. The symmetry is nice. There hasn't been this much excitement in UCLA football since 1998. People are excited about the replacements for Dorrell, vote here, and potentially heralding a new era of excellence. The money is also there to make it happen!
We will not know today about Dorrell's fate officially apparently, although we are getting conflicting reports on that score. Dan Guerrero does have plans to meet with Dorrell this morning, according to Robert Kuwada OCR. What happens next is anyone's guess, but a couple of sources have Guerrero waiting until after the Wednesday night season banquet. Waiting really doesn't make sense to us but those are the reports. There is no doubt however that Dorrell is gone.
We thought we'd offer The List of Dorrell's record as UCLA head coach, updated, just in case there are some wackos out there who still think UCLA football is where it needs to be with Dorrell at the helm (HT to Fox71 at BruinsNation, also a Bruin Ad contributor). Here it is, the final word (and we are keeping it short): read more
Update: PE is now saying that Morgan Center said Dorrell may not be made available for his usual Sunday OR Monday pressers. Stay tuned.
We are not sure what to make of the Press Enterprise's blog announcement that UCLA has scheduled a press conference for Monday. Is it Dorrell's normal Monday presser?? Was this scheduled long ago and is normal at the end of the season?? Or, is this a special conference called by Morgan Center?? In any case, it is interesting because we have never seen this type of conference called before: read more
Dorrell's final days are being written up by more sports columnists and dare we say even the guy who has the biggest man-crush on Dorrell, Trev Alberts. Let's start with Daily Breeze writer Mike Waldner (HT to Nestor at BruinsNation):
Coach (Dorrell) has had ample time to demonstrate his strengths and weaknesses. Not even a win Saturday will save him from a pink slip.
You should have a read of Waldner's entire piece. read more
Not much more needs to be said here. From Tom Deinhart of Sporting News:
UCLA
Several sources have told me that Karl Dorrell will be coaching his last game in Westwood this weekend.
Despite the obvious error, Deinhart may actually have something here. Deinhart, you might recall, caused a little bit of an uproar read more
This should come as no surprise obviously, but it is noteworthy that senior ESPN college football writer Bruce Feldman stated on his blog today that if Karl Dorrell loses to SuC he will be fired:
The buzz here in Los Angeles is that if Karl Dorrell's team doesn't upset arch-rival USC on Saturday, the Bruins head coach will be fired shortly thereafter.
And if you want to know how Feldman gets some of his information, check this out: read more
There are more and more discussions out there in the press about replacements for Karl Dorrell, even if our beat press (*cough* Brian Dohn *cough*) chooses to ignore the talk. Tom Deinhart of Sporting News leads his column today with a discussion of a few more candidates that he has heard bandied about. You might remember earlier in the week, Deinhart talked about BYU's Bronco Mendenhall and Boise State's Chis Peterson, and thew in Texas Tech's Mike Leach for fun. Today, Deinhart talks about all the replacements we have been talking about for some time: read more
Chris Foster of the LAT notes that Karl Dorrell’s future is now being debated among the VIP alums:
Five seasons of UCLA meandering has taken the discussion about (Dorrell’s) future from insignificant website operators to serious Bruins alumni. That kind of talk carries more weight than Internet chatter.
Woa … wait a minute. Is Foster taking a dig at us?! Ha, whatever Chris … we are “insignificant” … then why did you write an entire article about us in “cyberspace”?! The great thing about read more
