In this week’s edition of MOTM, the CBR crew assembles their collective wisdom to diagnose the maladies afflicting the UCLA Bruins.
Allen Kenney: UCLA is located smack dab in the middle of the second-largest city in the United States and, arguably, the country’s most fertile recruiting base. It has a fairly strong academic reputation and diverse student body. The weather is warm, and the ladies are lovely (see above).
Considering all that, we should be talking about one of college football’s elite programs. Instead, the Bruins are the biggest underachievers in the sport.
We’re talking about a team that went 4-8 a year ago and started this season with a loss to C-USA’s Houston. Things should be looking up for UCLA with USC’s NCAA-induced dilution, but the program may be on the edge of cratering in what looks like Rick Neuheisel’s final year on the sidelines.
Seriously, can someone explain to me what’s wrong with UCLA?
Michael Felder: The simple answer? Bad coaching. Bob Toledo started to decline in his final four seasons, never finishing higher than 4th from 1999 to 2002. The brass went with Karl Dorrell whose “stellar” 10-2 campaign nabbed him a 3rd place Pac-10 finish but was overshadowed, even still, by the Trojans efforts across town. Dorrell was fired just two seasons later as they limped to a 6-7 finish in 2007.
Enter Rick Neuheisel. A guy the bulk of college football was sure would succeed given the fact he’d done it before and in “lesser” locales than LA. If Neuheisel could see success at Colorado and Washington than surely the plentiful recruiting lands of Los Angeles would help him achieve success for the Bruins.
Boy were we wrong. All of us. The Bruins have been woeful under Slick Rick. In three seasons we’ve been privy to the Westwood gang finishing 8th twice and 9th once. In the time when USC is at their worst in a decade the Bruins are even worse.
So the quick answer comes back to leadership and that, for a football team, manifests itself as coaching.
Aaron Torres: I think the bigger question becomes this: How does the UCLA brass handle the next coaching search?
Right now, the Los Angeles college football scene is vulnerable. Even if Lane Kiffin proves to be a halfway decent coach (and I lose confidence by the week of that ever happening), his program is set to get hit with scholarship sanctions over the next few years. Hard. Simply put, he’s not going to be able to take every kid he wants in the area, or even most of them. Assuming that as time goes on they’ll actually want to play for them.
That’s going to open the door for big things at UCLA…if they bring in the right guy. If not, it’ll just further allow everyone else in the Pac-12 to come in and cherry pick pretty much whoever they want; hell, the leftovers alone are good enough to make any team an instant contender (which only makes the current situation at UCLA only more confusing).
To a degree, it’s already happened. We saw it last February with De’Anthony Thomas choosing Oregon at the 11th hour, and with Steve Sarkisian’s strong ties, you know Washington is going to get guys as well. Jon Embree has already made it a point of emphasis at Colorado, and Utah has been able to get the second-tier kids to come to Salt Lake for years. With the move to the Pac-12, that’ll only broaden the type of player they can bring in. And that doesn’t even take into account the effect that adding four more teams from the Big XII could have.
Simply put, whoever replaces Slick Rick needs to be young, dynamic, able to bring in talent, and umm, actually coach. UCLA has been mediocre under Neuheisel. If they don’t get this fixed soon, they could very well become obsolete.
Tom Perry: Let’s go a different direction with Neuheisel and UCLA.
While the loss to Houston is disappointing for the Bruins, it doesn’t really mean a thing when it comes to competing in the Pac-12. It was a road game and Houston is an offensive juggernaut with Case Keenum healthy. Chalk it up as a bad loss and Slick Rick can move forward.
So the Bruins get back to 1-1 this week with San Jose State, and then they get Texas at home. Even at 1-2 not all is lost (and don’t be shocked if UCLA beats Texas). I can still see UCLA going 6-3 in the conference, which means 8-4 or 7-5. Of course, that’s not what the UCLA brass had envisioned when they brought Neuheisel home, but it’s not enough to get him booted off campus.
UCLA will give him at least 2012 before they give up on Neuheisel.
Allen: Tom, what have we seen to make you think UCLA will get to 6-3 in the conference? Granted, there appears to be parity in the Pac-12 this year, but…
I see two sure wins on the schedule – home games against Colorado and Washington State.
I see one guaranteed “L” – at Stanford.
That means getting four wins out of: Oregon State (road), Arizona (road), California (home), Arizona State (home), Utah (road), USC (road-ish).
Not unfathomable. Even so, I’d say the odds are stacked against it.
Maybe UCLA’s administration and fan base just don’t care? If so, it’s their call, but that’s a damn shame. It’s like taking a Vegan to a Brazilian steakhouse.
As an Oklahoma fan, I look forward to seeing Bob Stoops take full advantage of that apathy and USC’s exile.
Matt Yoder: As the reigning Pac-12 “expert” (how did that happen exactly?), UCLA has at least five losses lined up in conference play. They aren’t in the same galaxy as Stanford so that should indeed be a guaranteed loss. The Bruins will be heavy underdogs at Arizona, ASU, and Utah, and should get demolished by USC again. Corvallis is always a tough place to play, so that could very well be a sixth conference defeat. And, as much as I hate to pour gasoline on the fire here, I’m not even sure home games against the Buffs and Cougs are sure things at the moment.
What happened at UCLA? Perhaps it’s just the cycle of college football programs. Minnesota was once a national powerhouse too, you know. The larger picture is the dearth of talent at UCLA and inability to find a true leader of a program and gather top notch recruits. Neuheisel is supposedly a quarterback guy, and yet he had the worst passing offense in college football last year that didn’t run the triple option! Please! Can anyone name their best player right now? Outside of Maurice Jones-Drew, have they had any player of significant value in the last decade?
To tell you the truth, I don’t know if anyone can quickly turn around UCLA at the moment. It’s a has-been elite program. UCLA has had one, count ’em, one Top 3 finish in the Pac 10/12 since 1998 and one season of more than seven wins in that period! (Both in ’05) I think the college football world kids itself in thinking that programs like UCLA and Notre Dame can sprinkle some of their old magic to make their years of mediocrity go away. Aaron reasoned that UCLA may become obsolete, I’d say they’re already there.
Michael: Pardon me for not buying the Minnesota comparison. Minnesota as a state produces minimal numbers of FBS athletes and even fewer legitimate BCS caliber contributors on a yearly basis from their high schools. LA, the surrounding area and California in general are not akin to Minnesota.
There’s a reason Colorado wanted to get into the Pac-12, aside from philosophical similarities. There’s a reason Pac-12 north schools want to play in the state of California a few times a year. There’s a reason Boise St, Washington, Oregon and Arizona State have so many California kids on their rosters.
The state has talent. Home grown talent.
I know I opened this by banging on Neuheisel but in the end “being obsolete” is something someone above the head coach ALLOWS to happen. Oklahoma will never be obsolete. Alabama, even after suffering through the late 90’s and much of 2000’s made a decision to be good and they are. Hell UNC decided it would behoove them to win ball games and they put the pieces in place to do it.
The push has to come from the culture and be driven by the administration. Either they want to win or they don’t. What they do with the new TV deal (which should silence their ‘we don’t have any money’ cries) will tell us all we want to know about how important winning is to them.
Matt: Mike, you’re selling the talent of those Golden Gophers championship teams of the ’30s and ’40s short.
If anything, the fact that these treasures of talent are indeed sitting outside UCLA’s front lawn is an even more alarming indictment of what kind of shape the Bruins program is in. Idaho and Oregon don’t produce a ton of BCS-caliber contributors either, and yet the Broncos and Ducks find ways to consistently be among the nation’s best.
If the talent is there, why isn’t UCLA getting any of it? Why are the Bruins getting 16 recruits while USC gets 30? In the end, I agree with you, Michael – the problem is systemic. Until the entire program from top to bottom commits to winning, they’ll be stuck with the Minnesotas, Iowa States, and Mississippis of the world as mediocre BCS teams. UCLA didn’t get in this position overnight, and it’s going to take a long time to climb out.
For updates on late breaking news, opinion and insight, be sure to follow Crystal Ball Run on Twitter @CrystalBallRun.
