From the Daily Californian in 1999 after Ryan Sorahan left Cal, quotes then coach Holmoe and makes a comparison to Losman leaving UCLA.
“You can’t recruit players on the basis of, ‘Boy, he’s too good, he might transfer,’ — you’ve got to be kidding me,” Holmoe says. “You go out and recruit the best and hope they’re committed to the school, and not just committed to their individual success.”
Just take Losman. UCLA guaranteed him that it wouldn’t recruit another quarterback, which apparently didn’t matter enough to Losman to delay his transferring until he had at least participated in fall training camp.
Now UCLA doesn’t have a quarterback in its freshman class, and Losman is on his way to a starter’s job elsewhere.
And a column by Trev Alberts from 99 on Losman
More teams are going to the two-quarterback system, and their coaches say its because both athletes deserve to play. But that's just covering up a bigger problem -- young quarterbacks who insist on playing right away or threaten to transfer.
Take, for instance, the situation at UCLA. Heralded recruit J.P. Losman graduated high school early to take part in spring drills, then decided to transfer after practicing just 15 days. As Bruins offensive coordinator Al Borges told me, these kids just don't want to compete anymore. There isn't a single head coach who wants to rotate quarterbacks. But if you don't play the freshman and he transfers, you jeopardize the future of your team.
A lot of the "questions" on Losman now relate to this stuff, he simply refused to compete for the starting job he thought it should be handed to him, and when it wasn't he bolted. Then he didn't beat out Ramsey, who admittedly was very good, and it made him look even stupider.
Very interesting reading old stuff like that, I found a column by alan wallace rating UCLA's recruiting class #6 in the country that year, Losman being the prize recruit along with Marcus Reese. Also mentioned the Ball twins, both of whom were only 235 pounds at the time. Dave Ball wound up the best recruit of the whole lot but was maybe ranked 10-15 in the class when he signed, and that's just 10-15 of UCLA players.
