Update: TJ Simers is reporting in his hit job on Dan Guerrero that Steve Kragthorpe is rumored to be interviewing for the job. If true, it would be odd, as Kragthorpe was forced to retain staff at Louisville and it has turned out badly. There is no way he would do it again with UCLA (HT to raebreadraz at BruinsNation).
Tom Deinhart is probably more on top of UCLA football than any of our beat press "journalists," and a slight bit more fair in his reporting … remember his now famous story on Walker meeting with Guerrero during the season?!! Deinhart is becoming a must read for Bruin fans … here is the latest news his sources have come up with: read more
Tom Deinhart of Sporting News reports that DeWayne Walker interviewed tonight for the head coaching position. Here it is:
A source close to the UCLA coaching search says that interim head coach/defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker interviewed for the Bruins' post Tuesday night. I reported earlier that Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Norm Chow has been contacted and is expected to interview.
Others expected to be involved are former NFL coach Steve Mariucci, Texas Tech coach Mike Leach and Boise State coach Chris Petersen. But some outlets report that UCLA is lukewarm on Leach, who reportedly is interested in the position. And Petersen has stated publicly that he isn't interested in coaching UCLA.
Soon we will be hearing 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
Hi-larious … and you thought we were making this stuff up for kicks. We told you all year that the Arizona game was going to be this year’s version of the Monster.com bowl where the game’s losing coach would be looking for a job. In last year’s Monster.com bowl Arizona State’s Dirk Koetter lost to Dorrell and then promptly lost his job, as we scripted. In this year’s Monster.com bowl, Mike Stoops coasted his Arizona team to a victory over Dorrell and what does he get for it??!! He gets another year, according to Tom Deinhart of Sporting News:
Mike Stoops will be back at Arizona next season. That word comes from Arizona’s school president, who on Monday night ended speculation there could be a coaching change in Tucson.
We print it here, it happens there. Too funny … wait a minute. If Stoops is back next year … then … Dorrell is …
Matt Hayes of Sporting News, one of Dorrell's staunchest, if not oddest, supporters, may have finally ended his man-love relationship with Dorrell. Prior to the start of this season Hayes had Dorrell's team listed as his "sleeper pick" to win the championship!! Also before this season, he named the hiring of Training Jay Norvell, the guy who had our team score all of 6 points against powerhouse Utah and their underclassman and 6 points against winless Notre Shame, the best hiring of the offseason by any college football team. Dorrell's Training Jay hire beat out the hiring of Dennis Erickson by ASU, Nick Saban by Alabama, and Butch Davis by North Carolina, just to name a few. Hayes even said prior to this season that the loss against Florida State in the Nut Bowl was "an aberration." Woops … love is blind. And if you recall, Hayes said prior to LAST season that Dorrell had UCLA becoming a threat again in college football. No joke … Matt Hayes was as drunk on the Dorrell Kool Aid as they came.
Then came Utah … then came Notre Dame … and Matt Hayes started sounding a little unsure about his guy Karl Dorrell: read more
Editor’s Update: Tom Deinhart and Sporting News has taken down the text in his column referring to the Dan Guerrero meeting with DeWayne Walker. Nice bit of editing after the fact without any notice to the public. That’s sure to have broken at least one rule of journalism ethics. Anyhow, the text we quote here is verbatim the way it originally appeared. We noted that we didn’t believe the story when we read it but obviously something is amiss. Surely Marc Dellins, UCLA SID is on this.(HT to BrinsNation for the pickup)
Update 2: Tom Deinhart in the comment section explains the deletion: “Note to readers: There was an item on UCLA’s Karl Dorrell that was pulled. UCLA admits that its A.D. met with a Bruin assistant last week for “personal development” reasons.” So obviously a meeting with an assistant did occur. This ads more intrigue.
Update 3: Morgan Center uses LAT What’s Bruin Blog and Rich Perelman as it’s mouthpiece to deny the Deinhart report: “UCLA sports information director Marc Dellins said this afternoon, “This story is categorically untrue. We have asked that it be removed from the SportingNews.com Web site.” As of 1:35 p.m. Pacific time, the segment of Dienhart’s blog entry concerning UCLA had, in fact, been removed.” And yet, Deinhart added that Guerrero met with an assistant about “personal development” and Morgan Center admitted the meeting did occur. Interesting. read more
Imagine if we on the internet had not made our rage displeasure about the state of our football program known to the media last year and all off-season. We would not be getting the kind of press on Karl Dorrell's incompetence we are getting so far this year. We are 4-1 and most pundits would be saying Karl Dorrell is doing a "great job in Westwood" had we all not collectively made it known that that is far from the case. Some in the press are no longer receptive to Dorrell's attempts to reduce expectations. Today, even as we break the top 25 in one poll and play for an easy 5-1 record Saturday against pathetic 0-5 Notre Dame at the Rose Bowl, Tom Deinhart of Sporting News keeps the pressure on:
I hear Karl Dorrell will be watched closely and needs to win pretty big down the stretch. He has picked up the pace recently and looks safe. Still … Should a change be made in Westwood, I'm told the Bruins want to hire a big, splashy name. Look for Boise State's Chris Petersen to figure in. UCLA would love to steal USC offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian. And a familiar name already being batted about is Norm Chow, the Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator and former USC coordinator.
I also have to think UCLA would look at Montana coach Bobby Hauck, a top-notch commodity who almost got the Stanford job last year. Hauck is an untapped gem. Maybe he'll be a guy Washington State looks at if it makes a change.
Nice. This kind of talk is read more
And to top it all off, the MSM is hitting hard. Sporting New's Pat Forde heads the list with his own list of The Fraudulent Four, putting UCLA at the head of the class of teams that "have sabotaged their fans' preseason optimism":
UCLA (11). The Dash foolishly ignored Karl Dorrell's past precedent, which screamed that his team would mail in at least one lame performance against an unranked team. (See: Stanford loss 2003, Washington State loss 2004, Arizona loss 2005, Washington loss 2006.) The Dash's faith in a veteran Bruins' team was rewarded with a 44-6 quit job against wounded, winless Utah. Pathetic.
Thanks Karl. Thanks a lot. It's just mind-blowing that Karl Dorrell said that he's "brought back the tradition of UCLA football" before this season started in a nice fluff piece on Fox … and this is what his players and UCLA football are now nationally known for - "quit job," "lame," and "pathetic." Fraudulent pretty much sums up Karl Dorrell's tenure at UCLA. Actually, that may be denying Morgan Center and Murphy Hall's own culpability in believing that a guy with 0 experience could learn on the job. The experiment in on the job training should be officially over at the end of the season.
Word is already getting out. We are starting to get responses to our email to the media. First up, surprisingly, Matt Hayes of the Sporting News - one of Karl Dorrell's biggest supporters. He told us in an email that he thought the loss was "very disturbing to say the least" and he said he was writing something about it now. Look for his next piece here. Do your part and get the word out! Send just 1 email to the email list we provide and let everyone know, politely, that what happened Saturday was unacceptable and that you want a new head coach.
One more memorable quote before we close for the night. It comes from Sports Illustrated's Ivan Maisel who feels burned by Dorrell yet again:
Finally, it figures the one week I finally disregard the Karl Dorrell factor and bump UCLA up seven spots in the power rankings, they go and put up a vintage Dorrell-caliber letdown, getting destroyed on the road by an 0-2 Utah team. Technically, it has no bearing on the Bruins’ Rose Bowl hopes — but I’m pretty sure it ain’t happening.
Right about now Sporting News' Matt Hayes, who thinks Dorrell is one of the best coaches in the NCAA and who picked UCLA as his sleeper to win the national title and who named Training Jay as the BEST offseason hire, is wondering how to spin Dorrell's latest blunder. You can email Matt Hayes at: mhayes AT sportingnews.com.
