The not-so-obvious question after last Saturday's amazing win against USC is simple: Uh, so, now what?

The conventional wisom is that the USC win saved Karl Dorrell's job. That much seems obvious enough. With respect to thoughts otherwise here, I don't think even with a loss to Florida State that Dorrell loses his job. Now, there's no way UCLA should lose that game. FSU's offense is terrible, run by an even worse Offensive Coordinator than Jim Svoboda.

That said, changes need to be made on the UCLA coaching staff, and I don't doubt that they will. So what are the options?

First, Dan Guerrero had to go out of his way and issue a denial to the rumor that Steve Mariucci was contacted by UCLA prior to the USC game. That's good news for two reasons: first, it shows that Guerrero is actually interested in building a winning football program. Good. Secondly, that the Morgan Center was interested in talking to Mariucci (if that is indeed the case) shows that there is money there to invest in a head coach.

OK, good news.

So, let's naturally assume that Dorrell's job is safe this year. Let's review.

Jim Svoboda: Offensive Coordinator, 1st year. I think after this year, it has become fairly obvious that Svoboda is a good quaterbacks coach and a not-so-good offenseive coordinator. The job that Svoboda has done this year with Cowan is admirable. Cowan is not that most athetically gifted quaterback. He floats balls. He doesn't have anything that one could remotely call a 'deep ball'. He can run, though, and Svoboda designed enough schemes to exploit those strengths.

Let's look at the numbers:

2005 Pass Offense: 23rd
2006 Pass Offense: 61st

2005 Rushing Offense: 45th
2006 Rushing Offense: 74th

2005 Total Offense: 23rd
2006 Total Offense: 76th

The greatest weakness of this year's offense was the running game. And of course, offense starts and ends with the running game. Chris Markey is no Mo Drew. That said, Markey didn't seem to have a lot of help in the play-calling department this year. Chris Markey is not a good straight ahead runner - yet, for some reason, that's all we seemed to do with him. Sweeps and misdirections were almost afterthoughts for Svoboda. That needs to change - and whether that means Dorrell handles more play-calling duties or find someone else, the focus needs to be on the running game.

Dino Babers: Running Backs, 1st year: I also think some of the blame for the lack of a running game this year falls with Babers. Babers, prior to his experience as a running backs coach at UCLA, coached the...wide receivers. The only running backs coaching exeprience Babers had prior to his assumption of the duties at UCLA last year was at Arizona (1997), UNLV (1988-1989), and Eastern Illinois (1987).

Babers did serve as offensive coordinator at Arizona from 1998-2000, where the offense did put up some pretty impressive numbers. That said, the running backs clearly took a step backward at UCLA this year. Whether that falls to Svoboda or Babers is a bit open for debate, but clearly, Markey did not look very strong this year. In addition, Kahlil Bell looked like he severely regressed this year. I remember watching him last year and thinking he could be pretty good. He utlimately ended up the 3rd string tailback. Not good.

Jim Colletto: Offensive Line, 1st year. I also have my reservations about Colletto. Despite his pedigree as being able to develop a running-focused offenseive line, this year's offensive line looked anything but like a running-based offensive line. Pass protection was usually adequate (although one could argue a lot of this had to do with the scrambling ability of Cowan that developed later in the season). Run blocking was OK at best, abysmal at worst. I've also not been a fan of Coletto's recent jobs. He took an aboslutely amazing talent in Robert Gallery in Oakland and made him looked confused, lost, and slow.

DeWayne Walker: Defensive Coordinator, 1st year. Uh, yeah. Where to start. Uhm, this guy is good. Really, really good. Let's start woith the hard data:

2005 Total Run Defense: 116th
2006 Total Run Defense: 12th

2005 Total Pass Defense: 77th
2006 Total Pass Defense: 83rd

2005 Total Defense: 113th
2006 Total Defense: 33rd

First, the obvious questions are, what does this say about the team? Most of us recognized that the secondary at UCLA is still a weakness. Verner, as a true freshman, was the best cornerback on the team. There's obviously a bit of a talent gap there. The good news is that Walker's experience rests mainly with the secondary. He should be able to make improvements there, particularly as it relates to recruiting.

In addition, with almost exactly the same defensive line as last year, Walker was able to turn the tables completely around in the rushing game. This should always be your goal as a defensive coordinator: stop the run. And we went from second-worst in the D1 nation to 12th. That's un-freakin'-believable. It's also not surprising that pass defense would deteriorate a bit if your run defense is that good.

Of course, the obvious is question is: OK, that's all well and good, but what do you do?

Here's what I would do:

Svoboda: If I had a choice, I would demote Svoboda back to quarterbacks coach and bring in someone else to control the offense. That's probably not a viable option, though. Svoboda would need to go instead of being demoted. So, I'd part ways with Svoboda and bring in....wait for it....Dirk Koetter. Koetter is a terrible head coach but a good offensive mind. He's also looking for a job, in case you haven't heard.

Babers: I'd give Babers another year to see how the running backs respond. I'd pay particular attention to the development of Bell and Markey next year. If they don't progress, it would be time to move on.

Colletto: I'd get rid of Colletto. He hasn't been good since the turn of the century, and his blocking schemes are confusing, especially for college kids. Not sure who I'd bring in to replace him, but I'm sure there are some capable offensive line coaches with more extensive college experience than Colletto.

Walker: First, I'd hug him. Then I'd give him a nice raise and hope he sticks around for a couple of more years. He will not be here long if he does not get a head-coaching job at UCLA, and there's really not much we can do about that.