Dump Dorrell

Saturday is shaping up to be an interesting matchup on the sidelines if not on the field.  Many of you have heard or seen the amazing intro flash video on Pete Carroll’s website that praises Pom Pom Pete as a “Humanitarian.”   Nestor at Bruinsnation ran a hilarious 2-part instant message exchange between bloggers for Texas and Florida in which they skewered the “Humanitarian” mercilessly.  Part 2 will give you some of the biggest laughs at Southern Cal’s expense you’ve ever had.

KD would never have such a flashy site, but you may recall that his, uh, (more…)

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This week’s Stat Of The Week: what can we say, its the streak - 7 losses in a row.  Southern Cal has never beaten us 8 times in a row.  Everyone knows that we beat the Trojans 8 years in a row up to 1999 when this current losing streak started.   Our 8 game winning streak is the longest in our ‘rivalry.’ 

That we have the longest winning streak in the rivalry should be a surprise, and a call to arms, because  (more…)

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When was the last time the national championship was on the line for our rivalry game?  Seems like fresh territory, but it was just two years ago.  The setting was the same - the Rose Bowl.  The coaches were the same.  And the outcome was all too familiar.  Sure, were it not for a questionable play we would have had the game and the upset, and stopped the ugly losing streak at 5.   But no one counts almosts and if-onlys.  So here we are now at 7 losses in a row and another title game on the line.  There is no better way to end the ugly streak than to win AND take away their national championship hopes.  Here are some game stats (more…)

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By now everyone has seen the infamous picture of the Southern Cal cheerleader celebrating and cheering as her team’s opponent, Texas, scored the winning touchdown in waning seconds of the national championship game last year.   A little known fact about the cheerleader in question: she has been there celebrating and cheering, and got it right sometimes, during some of the most significant moments in world history. Yeah, whoda thunk it!!  She’s smarter than she looks.  Check it out after the jump … (more…)

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It's a bit early to be talking Arizona State but this week's game is sure to draw some heat. That is from fans of both teams over the performance of their head coach.  ASU fans have wanted to fire coach Dirk Koetter for a couple of years now.  And of course you know of UCLA fans dissatisfaction with coach Karl Dorrell.  Both are coming off pressure relieving wins but one is going to come away with a loss and the lead in "the coach most likely to be fired" race.  Next up, The Monster.com Bowl.

Regardless of who wins, both coaches must climb the wall of insanity that is closing in on them and their programs (that's a bit of humor folks). They share similar records and, strangely, initials (DK & KD).  Koetter has compiled a 61% winning pct. at ASU (62-40) while Dorrell is at 57% (27-20). Koetter has a 20-26 record against the Pac-10 and Dorrell has a 17-14 record.  Koetter and Dorrell share horrible records against ranked teams, Koetter at 2-20 and Dorrell at 3-11. While Koetter does well on the road, 26-10, he does horribly at home 36-30.  Dorrell has done well at home, 19-5, but horribly on the road, 8-15. Of course they also share the ire of (more…)

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Editors note: Tshirts are finally available here. Update: We will be sending staff to Westwood with tshirts Saturday morning and the Rose Bowl before the game so that you can have them for the OSU game. Details later. There is a limited edition of 200 tshirts first run so those who purchase them will get theirs first, obviously. If you want to ensure you get one, then purchase one online and then contact us to let us know you’d rather pick one up if we do this. For those who have already purchased tshirts check your email for details. The Dump Dorrell petition is closing in on 600 signatures after the first 6 days and is getting national attention. Email it to everyone you know.

The reality of another awful season and KD’s failed tenure as coach is settling in. In addition to the increased calls for firing Karl Dorrell and the national attention those efforts are getting, Morgan Center is out there profiling KD in new ways to the press. After 4 straight losses and three subpar seasons in four, they have to repair his image. Check out this bit of fluff the LA Times is putting out as a response to all the obvious criticism … “KD The Thinker!” Ridiculous. Morgan Center even made KD’s wife available and the LAT uses her like a political ad. What a bunch of tripe! Why not profile KD’s abysmal record?! For an $850,000 a year (+ $550,000 incentives) salaried public official, shouldn’t KD be judged on his achievements, not his demeanor at home?! It’s called pandering, and the LA Times is a master at it.

Let’s move onto this week’s game. Oregon State brings its surprising team to the Rose Bowl sitting in third place in the Pac-10 at 6-3. They need one more win to be bowl eligible (they have a 13 game schedule) just like Washington State did when they came to town. Coming off a stunning upset of Southern Cal and a blowout of Arizona State, OSU is riding high and touching the top 25. (more…)

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Editor’s note: We made the petition to Dump Dorrell available last night. Read it, sign it, leave a comment, and send it to your friends. Get viral with it by using the viral bookmarks at the bottom of this post, by sending the post to your friends, or using the links on the petition to send to your friends. You can also link directly to the petition on your Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, or other website pages. Tshirts are coming soon.

Time to focus on Saturday’s game at Cal. Despite the poor showing our defense made last week, and the blunder in South Bend, our defense is going to be the key to winning this game - again. Cal’s offense is top ranked, #7 in the country (#13 passing), with many options for scoring, including soph phenom WR DeShaun Jackson (LB Poly) who just may win the Heisman next year. Junior RB Marshawn Lynch gains over 110 ypg, #11 in the country, and averages over a touchdown a game (close to what our Bruins average). Cal’s offense scores 36+ points a game, #9 in the country. We have yet to score more than 31 points in one single game; we did score 31 twice (Utah and Stanford). Our defense helped our offense score in those games.

After Wazzu torched our secondary for 400+ yards, DC Walker is going to have to prove himself to hold this offense within striking distance. He can no longer boast a top 10 defense, having lost that chest-thumping honorific after the most recent embarrassment. We now have the nation’s #36 ranked defense. Welcome to The Suck DeWayne!

We need a near flawless performance from our offense and Pat Cowen to keep this game close. And we are matching up against another horrible defense in Cal, ranked #92 in the country. Even though we were shut down by the nation’s #97 ranked passing defense last week, Cal offers another opportunity at redemption. Cal’s #106 ranked passing defense gives up 250 ypg. That is worse than Arizona, Utah, Stanford, AND Rice. Cowen and Svoboda need this, and they need to come up big and score more than 1 touchdown. But we say flawless because Cal somehow manages to gain more turnovers on defense than almost every other team in Div 1A. 18 interceptions in 8 games! 7 by SR CB Dameion Hughes (Crenshaw), two of which he ran back for TDs. Maybe that’s why their defense only gives up 20 points a game. There will be little room for error against the Bears.

Redemption, respect, a little bit of momentum going into the last four games, this is what KD and co will be looking for. We haven’t won at Cal since 1998, and with this matchup we will need everything to go our way. But it’s always possible with any Bruin team. Go Bruins!!

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There will be an interesting game within the game Saturday. The nation’s #2 sack master Justin Hickman will be gunning down Alex Brink, Wazzu’s QB, and the nation’s #3 sackmaster Wazzu’s Mkristo Bruce will be gunning for Pat Cowan. Bruce’s 10 sacks have all been solos, as he is a speed guy that tries to use his hands to get at QBs. Hickman is deservedly getting all the press after his 3 sack performance against ND. He has 10 1/2 sacks, many of them with teammate sackmaster Bruce Davis, #14 in the country with 6.5 sacks. Brink is going to have happy feet trying get away from Hickman and Davis, who made “Heisman-candidate” ND QB Brady Quinn look like a high school walk-on. It’s going to be fun to watch.

Other notes:

• WSU is play a modified 3-4 defense, and still getting to the QB! That’s going to make it hard to go long. With PC’s noted innacuracy long and over the top, and with a pass rush thats gets to the QB PC is going to have to have a better outing than he did at ND.
• WSU could get their bowl-eligible 6th win Saturday and head to a bowl game for the first time since 2003. After facing a 4-4 season with a loss to Oregon, now the Cougars are talking 9 maybe 10 wins. Wish we could be so optimistic.
• WSU coach Bill Doba lost his wife Judy of 43 years in April to a 4-year battle with cancer. That’s got to be tough. We wish him well.

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ND is over, Wazzu is up next.  Although the Cougars are coming off a big win at home against a highly ranked Oregon team (yes it does happen), Wazzu is beatable and we should roll to a victory at the Rose Bowl.  Even we a DD had this game in the W column for our pre-season 6-6 prediction.  No excuses KD.  Nestor at Bruinsnation has a good start on the Wazzu matchup.  We want to focus on a few things.  The confusion in getting in plays that has hampered the coaching staff all season apparently is worse than we thought:

Dorrell acknowledged the Bruins' difficulties getting calls made. "It could be coming from upstairs," he said, "it might be a recheck on the formation that we signaled into the quarterback, it could be the guy running in - it's a lot of different issues as to why we're still struggling with that."

So, it's "a lot of different issues?"  Ok, that makes us more confident.  Let's hope the coaching staff make some progress before Saturday.  At least KD believes his team will be ready and that there should be no expectation of a let down after the demoralizing loss to Notre Dame:

But during Monday s weekly press conference, an animated UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said he didn t fear having any trouble getting his team ready for Saturday s game with the Cougars, adding that the Bruins were looking forward to a strong finish.  "We feel more optimistic about how we have a tremendous challenge in this conference, Dorrell said, how teams have been in this position before in the history of this great game and have pulled themselves out doing great things in the weeks that follow, and that's what we're buying into."

Great! That is what we expect.  And it shouldn't be hard against a broken defense like Wazzu, who have lost 4 of their starting defensive tackles to injuries.  If our defense plays like they did Saturday against an average ND, they should beat a less than average Washington State offense.  Other quick notes:

• Since Wazzu is not in the top 25, KD can't improve his abysmal record against ranked teams (3-10), but he most likely can improve on the measly 3 conference wins against teams who finished the season over .500 during his entire coaching career at UCLA.
• From Robert Kuwada, OC Register:  It took Dorrell 28 games before one of his teams was ranked in the Top 25.  Bob Toledo took 14 games before one of his teams was ranked in the Top 25, and Terry Donahue, Dick Vermeil and Pepper Rodgers all were ranked in their first games at UCLA. Tommy Prothro took six games in his first season, 1965, before the Bruins were ranked.
• Watch Pat Cowen throw the long ball and the over the top pass.  He has trouble with accuracy and touch, especially the over the top pass. He jumps as he throws it, bad mechanics.  You cannot win in this conference if you can't throw either pass.  Both touchdown passes against the Irish were broken plays with plenty of yacs. He plays tough, scrambles well and never gives up, but we are not sold on PC yet.

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Unlike the Ducks, ND Coach Charlie Weis thinks ahead.  He has to. Oregon possibly blew its chance at a BCS bowl by taking their foot off the pedal Saturday. They seemed disinterested after the first quarter.  Oregon needed to blow that game wide open to erase their nationally televised trouncing at Cal, and they didn't.  Strange for Nike U to not get that important bit of PR significance, especially since they've been burned by the BCS in the past. 

Charlie Weis has no lack of focus in that regard as all eyes on are the BCS in South Bend every year.  Look for Weis to pour it on if and once he gets the lead.  If he loses to Southern Cal later in the year he needs a nationally televised statement game to give the BCS a reason to invite a 2-loss ND to a bowl over a 1-loss Pac-10 or other conference school (as has happened in the past). UCLA is the last marquee matchup, the last statement game, for ND before they travel to the Coliseum.  Weis is keenly aware of what's at stake in the BCS PR wars with this Saturday's game.  Incidentally, where is our friggin commish Tom Hansen??

Despite KD's continuing post-game excuses, we are sticking to our pre-season prediction that KD will call this year a "rebuilding year" as a trump card when the pressure for his ouster starts mounting - and we predicted it would be after a loss at ND.  He most likely will not say it, but a nationally televised embarrassment at South Bend would certainly add pressure.  "rebuilding year"  admission would be a sign that KD's  goodwill is disappearing.  Soon we will see if Dan Guerrero meant it when he said he wanted BCS Bowls and Pac-10 championships, and for our teams to "fire out" (whatever that means).   It would be AWESOME for UCLA Football if it was the pressure that DG brought, that championship expectation, that induced KD to foolishly state in pre-season that this was his "best team yet" - the statement that might illustrate more sharply than anything this year how badly KD has run this program and may eventually lead to his removal. We can always hope. Other notes:

1. As expected, some of the MSM are starting to question KD. Nestor at Bruinsnation has all the details.
2. Our pre-season 6-6 prediction is now being pushed by the MSM.  Despite a 4-2 record, the happy talk is starting to finally die down, another good indicator.
3. KD is building stats comparable to Toledo, and could have the worst first 4 years record in the modern era for a UCLA football coach (he already has the worst first 3 years).
4. Cowan is fine … no excuses!
5. Lastly, we find this hilarious. Google fed a Pasadena 'Rose Bowl' Museum banner ad on our site down the immediate right column yesterday and today! The message is not lost on us at DD, Google wants KD out too.  Nice!

DD

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