It ended as it existed, frustratingly. A series of mistakes, penalties and giveaways, and a final gut-wrenching blown play. Oh well. Another losing season in the record books. 40 years of not hiring a proven winner and you get ridiculous streaks like 21 years without a Rose Bowl win and 10 years without a Pac-10 conference championship. Now there is only one thing left to do: change the direction of our football program and hire a head coach with successful head coaching experience.
Like we said before the game, this game did not prove either way whether Walker is a good head coach. No single game will. read more
What a riot!!! This just keeps getting better by the day! Well, we are in Hollywood. According to Robert Kuwada of the OC Register, Karl Dorrell, after losing to SuC to notch his 4th .500 season in 5 years and knowing that he is about to lose his job entirely, NOW says he is ready to scrap the WCO!! WOW. We could not make this stuff up. If there ever was a case study in what NOT to do as a first time head coach, Karl Dorrell would be the case.
Also, Kuwada is reporting that Dan Guerrero said after the game that he will make a decision regarding Dorrell "during the week." Folks, if Dorrell were going to be the coach next year, WE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT NOW. Dorrell is gone. It's over. read more
The Dorrell era is over. The days of incredibly awful offense, bad decisions, poor discipline (penalties and turnovers), bad game plans, near non-existent in-game adjustments, poor clock management, constant assistant turnover, Dorrellian quotes, scapegoating, and mediocrity are finally OVER!! Yes, we are talking about Dorrell in the past. He is in the past to us … and any other rational Bruin fan, which is most of you. The only thing we are waiting for is the press conference … which could come as early as tomorrow and no later than Monday.
Today's read more
There is so much to cover regarding the game yesterday and all that surrounds our football program that we couldn't cover it in one post. We will start with the most critical factor of all: what Dan Guerrero is thinking. What DG said yesterday after the game should bring Holiday cheer to every Bruin's home, Steve Dilbeck Daily News reporting:
"It's all about the body of work," Guerrero said. "When you evaluate a program, you have to let the season run its course."
There it is. Guerrero gave Dorrell no vote of confidence when he had the chance to give it. What can a Dorrellista or TJ Simers/Bob Keisser/Brian Dohn (the Save Dorrell local press) say to that?? It's about the body of work!! There is not a single read more
We said yesterday that there is 21 days left in the Karl Dorrell era. The end should actually come 22 days from today, when on Monday, December 3, we expect to hear Dan Guerrero call a press conference to announce the long-awaited firing of Karl Dorrell. It would be shocking for it not to happen, and we would certainly have a response, but for now we expect it to happen. Nevertheless, our job is no where near finished. We have to make it so that there is no doubt in nearly every Bruin's mind that this is a fait accompli. The ads will go ahead.
Fate is taking hold however. Bill Plaschke, LAT:
This won't end well for Dorrell. The end seems near for the journey that has been Karl Dorrell's five-year UCLA coaching career. The end, we now know, will be sad. The end will be filled with fight, but an alley kind of fight, wild swings and pointed fingers and sucker punches … The end will be about devastated players making desperate plays in hopes of piercing the chill that has settled upon this UCLA football program like a shroud … The end of the journey that has been Karl Dorrell's five-year UCLA coaching career seems as certain as the pain in some of the final steps taken in Saturday's 24-20 loss to Arizona State at the Rose Bowl.
Sounds like a funeral. That's about as bad as read more
This is what you might be hearing the next 2 weeks before we play Oregon at the Rose Bowl. Shocking as it may seem, it still is a possibility that we can win the Pac-10, albeit at a minimum in a tie with ASU and SuC, and possibly Oregon. The tiebreaker to determine who would go the Rose Bowl is still indeterminable. It would take an incredible breakdown by both Oregon and Arizona State to close the season and an unlikely winning streak for Dorrell against 2 top 15 teams in Oregon and SuC for it to become a reality. But when has reality ever stopped Dorrell and his supporters? read more
ASU gave us several chances to win and Karl Dorrell gave us another loss. Nice job Karl, coaching hard, answering the bell! Now that those silly bracelets Dorrell had the team wear for the second straight year are finally going to be cut off, maybe this team can be fed some humble pie. All the talk of national championship (when we had 2 losses), all the talk about Pac-10 championship (just this week), all the showboating on the field when we were losing, the ridiculous penalty at the end of the half … this group of players are undisciplined, unfocused and unprepared to be successful. Obviously, that falls on the coach. Maybe with this big piece of humble pie they can learn something in spite of their coach.
We liked how inspiring Ossar is but he needs work. We like how gifted our players are but they need discipline and development, something they aren't getting from Dorrell, Walker, or Training Jay. The defense cut down ASU's offensive production like we said they would. Special teams carried us like we said they needed to. And we created turnovers. But we gave up stupid turnovers as well. We called a conservative game in the second half. And we had the usual bonehead penalties at critical times. This game was definitely within reach.
21 days left folks … and Dorrell is hopefully gone. It's still not a lock. We need to keep the pressure on. We will have the Daily Bruin ads going this week. We noticed one person made another contribution. Nice. More later …
Last week we wrote a piece on how Dorrell was losing control of his program: players were openly questioning play calling, players were beginning to make “coach’s decision” their pat answer to questions, recruits were decommitting or talking to other programs, assistant coaches were talking to Dan Guerrero about their future behind Dorrell’s back, practices were unfocused and lacked effort, etc. etc. Chris Foster of the LAT today is now pushing that same theory, that Dorrell is losing his grip on the program. He starts off by quoting LB Christian Taylor:
This has stopped being about winning, in Taylor’s view. This isn’t about the Pacific 10 Conference football title anymore. It isn’t even about whether Bruins Coach Karl Dorrell is retained. “At this point, it’s just about playing football,” Taylor said.
No longer about winning … sounds like read more
There is enough blame to go around today and we will get to it, but Osaar Rasshan gets plenty of praise. He had a very good game, despite the inaccuracy issues and put our team in a position to win. Why Karl Dorrell moved him to receiver only to never use him, then not have him ready as a backup when Olson went down is beyond explanation. The young man has raw talent … but once again talent gets wasted on a Dorrell coached team. Arizona beat us soundly today, no one can argue that the defense was tired, then sat on the ball. Any decent coached team could have beaten this Arizona team with our talent. It will be interesting to see who Dorrell blames this loss on (Training Jay? … he’s got to at some point right?!) and who DeWayne Walker fingers.
What else can you say?! DeWayne Walker’s inability to read more
Editor's Note: We are done for the night so if you are new to DD and commenting we won't be moderating comments until tomorrow. We will get to the business of getting a competent new coach then as well.
So much for the pregame talk about how we were ready to play, focused, had a great practice. So much for the hype of #1 in the Pac-10, undefeated in conference … the losses to the "gimmes" a distant memory but a reminder to play every team hard. So much for talk of a Pac-10 championship, let alone Bruce Davis' insane talk of a national championship. Did Dorrell answer the bell?? Did he coach hard? Did the great Defensive Genius, "OUR NEXT HEAD COACH," DeWayne Walker plan for Washington State to run up over 550 yards of offense, 270 yards RUSHING(!), against our 'top' defense?? Washington State, the bottom dweller of the Pac-10 … the team who got crushed by Oregon 53-7 … the team who's coach is probably out of a job next year just schooled Dorrell and Walker. The silly bracelets Dorrell has the team wear say "Finish Pac-10 Champions" the play on the field says "We don't know what we're doing."
The inconsistency, the inability to win on the road, the inability to beat teams we are supposed to, the inability to put together a winning game plan, the inability to adjust in game, the inability to dominate when we have the talent to do so was all there to see today. Where are all the Dorrellistas now?? Who is going to support another year of this??!! Who is going to want Karl Dorrell as our coach next year when we lose 17 starters and 25 players and have a much tougher schedule?? Who still thinks Karl Dorrell is going to win the Pac-10 championship EVER?!! Might as well cut those idiotic bracelets again … it is October after all. Get to work Dan!! We are out of rage … more tomorrow.
Get the word out, email Dan Guerrero, the administration and the media!!
