FYI UCLA football coaching rumor

[Russ Smith]

Apparently the rumor is the loss to Notre Dame finally convinced the AD that Dorrell needs to go. And the hot name to replace him is... Norm Chow.

Would be pretty surprising but remember he badly wanted the Stanford job so he's not averse to taking a job in the Pac 10 other than at USC.

Personally I had sort of assumed they might promote Walker from DC to coach if they fire Dorrell but it is an interesting idea with Chow. If you hire Chow you make Walker assistant head coach in charge of the defense, let Chow run the offense.

Of course they still don't have a QB but they do have a freshman redshirting this year named Forcier that they really like, in fact they're doing everything they can to NOT use him this year because they don't want to blow his redshirt year.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Not going to happen although barring a miracle Dullard is toast. Arizona, ASU, Stanford, and NC State (all four of which are below UCLA in the college football totem pole) never seriously considered Chow after they interviewed him when their jobs opened up. One UA booster supposedly told the athletic department that he'd never donate another dime to Arizona were Chow to get the job. His interview was that bad. Chow has little to no interest in the recruiting BS, schmoozing boosters, sucking up to HS coaches, and cuddling up to player's parents all of which is a huge part of being a college head coach.

UCLA will hire Jim Mora Jr. Book it.

 

[Mulli]

Help me out here, Mao. How did the booster know anything about the interview?

Just curious.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Help me out here, Mao. How did the booster know anything about the interview?

Just curious.

The big-time boosters in every program know everything that goes on with the football team. They pay up the ass for that right.

 

[Mulli]

The big-time boosters in every program know everything that goes on with the football team. They pay up the ass for that right.

Good point.

 

[Russ Smith]

Not going to happen although barring a miracle Dullard is toast. Arizona, ASU, Stanford, and NC State (all four of which are below UCLA in the college football totem pole) never seriously considered Chow after they interviewed him when their jobs opened up. One UA booster supposedly told the athletic department that he'd never donate another dime to Arizona were Chow to get the job. His interview was that bad. Chow has little to no interest in the recruiting BS, schmoozing boosters, sucking up to HS coaches, and cuddling up to player's parents all of which is a huge part of being a college head coach.

UCLA will hire Jim Mora Jr. Book it.

I don't see how UCLA would afford him to be honest. I don't follow football that closely but they'd have to eat a contract with Dorrell and Chow makes bank as an NFL OC so they'd have to top 1 million a year unless he just needs to be a head coach and is willing to take less money to do so?

The idea of Walker as assistant HC is he can do recruiting.

The rumor with Chow and Stanford was that Carroll recommended Chow to Stanford, then got really mad when he thought Chow was trying to convince Mark Sanchez to go with him to Stanford, that pissed off Carroll so much that he allegedly bad mouthed Chow to Stanford who wound up hiring Walt Harris who killed the football program. My understanding is thats one reason why there is apparent bad blood there now, it's not just Harbaughs comments about Carroll, it's the belief of some at Stanford that Carroll convinced them to NOT hire Chow.

I just thought it was an intriguing rumor. I checked a UCLA football board and they're talking about it too.

With Howland UCLA was able to get money via Adidas that helped them afford Ben, I don't think that's going to be the case with a football coach the program isn't big time enough.

 

[Gaddabout]

True. UCLA does not like to pay a lot for that muffler. For all their reputation, they're willing to take in local recruits who want to be there, which are always good if not great, and have never had any ambition to be like USC. Problem is they really want to beat USC. I don't know how to beat them (on an annual basis) without being like them.

It's too bad. I blame the Pac-10's slumber as a major college football player on UCLA and a stumbling Washington program. If those two programs would just meet expectations on an annual basis the Pac-10 would never have any reputation problems.

 

[Southpaw]

The big-time boosters in every program know everything that goes on with the football team. They pay up the ass for that right.

How about "pay out the ass". KInd of like the Texas A & M boosters who paid Franchione $$$$ for an inside news newsletter.

Hell, the big time boosters make the decisions, don't they? At least in the state of Florida they do.

 

[Southpaw]

Although, I suspect Jim Jr. would make a great college coach, I am not convinced he is through with the NFL. After seeing Petrino's less than stellar start, Mora Jr. , in retrospect, did a good job in Atlanta.

I suspect there will be a few openings in the NFL next year, but the UCLA gig may end up being the best one in LA if the NCAA chases Pete out.

 

[Russ Smith]

True. UCLA does not like to pay a lot for that muffler. For all their reputation, they're willing to take in local recruits who want to be there, which are always good if not great, and have never had any ambition to be like USC. Problem is they really want to beat USC. I don't know how to beat them (on an annual basis) without being like them.

It's too bad. I blame the Pac-10's slumber as a major college football player on UCLA and a stumbling Washington program. If those two programs would just meet expectations on an annual basis the Pac-10 would never have any reputation problems.

My take is a lot of UCLA fans are like me, they love UCLA basketball and that's what they want at UCLA is the basketball team to be great. If football is good too that's great, but it's not life or death like basketball is for some.

I see tons of UCLA fans who want Dorrell gone but they all realize money is the problem. It was with basketball too, a huge part of it is as a public school they are under huge pressure to NOT give out massive salaries to coaches. It's a school how do you justify multi million dollar salaries to coach football or basketball is what everyone asks. At USC it's a whole different game because it's a private school.

USC can pay Pete Carroll whatever they want, they can pay Tim Floyd what they want, they can let Tim Floyd hire the parents of prospects to get the kid to commit, it's a private school if he wants to give a parent a job to get the recruit so be it. You can't do that in a public school(frankly I'm still amazed nobody has hit USC with a discrimination suit for those types of hires in basketball).

Plus UCLA's AD isn't particularly good, he got lucky with Howland it was Ben's dream job, Adidas kicked in money to help, everyone knew UCLA was a sleeping giant. A story came out a few months back that said more than 50% of the recruits for football at UCLA, and Cal(and USC) are "special admits" which means they don't meet the average academics standards of the incoming class but were taken for some special reason, in their case athletics. At USC special admits also includes legacy students, same thing at Stanford (see the Lopez twins in basketball one of whom is now ineligible).
SO UCLA football IS "bending" their rules to try and be more competitive they're taking more and more kids that in the past they wouldn't take.

I'm quite happy the basketball team isn't doing that, they still take guys who have lower GPAs and SATs than the overall average but they're not taking guys who barely meet the NCAA minimums the way the football program is.

The reality is with rosters so big in football it's almost impossible to win and NOT lower your academics, that's why Stanford and ND are down IMHO, they simply can't get enough good players who meet their academics criteria. Stanford football took less than 10% as special admits in the same story they have lowered standards but not nearly as much as other schools have.

I'd like to see what Chow could do at UCLA but I don't think they can afford him unless he just so badly wants a HC job he just takes it.