Bumped. Great research to advance an important discussion. -BN

Prompted by an excellent suggestion from Meriones, I dug into the numbers to compare the reign of Dan Guerrero to that of his predecessor, Pete Dalis. I think it's fair to say many Bruin fans were less than thrilled with Dalis by the end of his 19 years as AD. I was curious to see how they'd stack up. In order to attempt a valid comparison, I will present numbers for a like number of seasons: DG's eight full school years as AD compared to Dalis' final eight school years, and the nine football seasons thus far under DG compared to the last nine football seasons under Dalis. (To refresh your memory, DG began working as AD on July 1, 2002.)

I have for the most part tried to simply present the numbers and let others analyze them. My only sources were the NCAA and the official UCLA Athletics web site. Formatting is always a challenge when creating FanPosts with data; I've done my best to make it presentable.

And away we go...

National Championships

Listed by year. Second-place finishes and individual championships in italics.

Under Dalis

1994-95: men's basketball, men's volleyball, women's softball - won on field but vacated due to scholarship issues, women's volleyball

1995-96: men's volleyball, men's water polo, men's tennis, women's gymnastics

1996-97: men's water polo, women's gymnastics, men's volleyball, women's softball

1997-98: men's soccer, men's volleyball

1998-99: women's softball, men's tennis

1999-2000: men's volleyball, men's water polo, women's indoor track and field, women's softball

2000-01: men's water polo, women's gymnastics, women's indoor track and field, women's water polo, men's volleyball, women's soccer, women's softball, women's individual gymnastic all-around champion

2001-02: women's gymnastics, men's water polo, women's water polo, women's individual gymnastics all-around champion

Under Guerrero

2002-03: men's soccer, women's gymnastics, women's softball, women's water polo

2003-04: women's golf, women's gymnastics, women's softball, women's outdoor track and field, men's tennis, women's tennis

2004-05: men's tennis, men's water polo, women's water polo, men's volleyball, women's soccer, women's softball, women's individual gymnastics all-around champion

2005-06: men's volleyball, women's water polo, men's soccer, women's soccer

2006-07: women's water polo, women's tennis

2007-08: men's golf, women's tennis, women's water polo, men's individual golf champion, women's individual gymnastics all-around champion

2008-09: women's water polo

2009-10: women's gymnastics, women's softball, men's baseball, men's water polo

Comparison

Championships: Dalis 17, Guerrero 20

1st or 2nd place team finishes: Dalis 28, Guerrero 30

1st or 2nd place team finishes plus individual champions: Dalis 30, Guerrero 33

Over their last four years, numbers for championships, 2nd place finishes, and individual champions: Dalis 9, 7, 2; Guerrero 7, 3, 2

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Director's Cup

The Director's Cup is given each year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the program with the most success that year. Final standings for each sport are weighted in the same manner as the AP and USA Today top 25 polls are created, and a school's top ten athletic team finishes get included. You can read the NACDA explanation here or read about it on wikipedia. It's been given for the last 17 years; Stanford somehow finished in second in the inaugural year, and has won it every year since. They're also in first place in the current standings (pdf).

Under Dalis

Finishes his last eight years, 1994-95 through 2001-02: 3, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, 2, 5     average: 3.25

Under Guerrero

Finishes in his eight full years: 6, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 16, 4     average 4.75

Currently we're in 24th. Still to come are a number of sports we're typically competitive in, including tennis, golf, baseball/softball, track and field, men's volleyball, and (this year!) women's basketball, but not having gone to a bowl game definitely hurt our standing, as it obviously did two years ago. We were in 20th at this point in 2008-09 and only rose four places, though that was also our weakest year of the last 16 in terms of national championships/2nd place finishes.

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Football

We have had nine seasons of football with Guerrero as AD, so I'm comparing those to the last nine years of football with Dalis as AD: 1993-94 to 2001-02. That included the last three years of Terry Donahue and the first six years of Bob Toledo. Guerrero's tenure has included the last year of Toledo, five years of CTS (see the Lexicon if you're not sure who that is), and three years of Rick Neuheisel. For ease of phrasing, I'll just use 'Dalis' and 'Guerrero' rather than 'coaches under Dalis' etc.

In the interest of easier comparisons, I'm presenting data about Dalis and Guerrero together.

Overall record: Dalis as AD 62-42, for .596. Guerrero as AD 57-55, for .509.

Pac-10 record: Dalis 41-31,  .569. Guerrero 36-41,  .468.

Pac-10 finishes in rank, not chronological, order: Dalis 1, 1, T-1, 4, T-5, T-5, T-5, 6, 9; average 4.1. Guerrero 3, 4, T-4, T-4, T-5, T-5, 8, 8, 9; average 5.6.

Bowl record: Dalis 1-4, Guerrero 3-4.

Next-best record after two 10-2 seasons under Dalis: 8-4. Next-best record after one 10-2 season under Guerrero: 7-5.

Average home attendance, rounded to nearest thousand, in chronological order:

Dalis 50K, 51K, 49K, 58K, 55K (10-2 season), 74K (10-2 season), 50K, 67K, 67K

Guerrero 66K, 67K, 61K, 64K (10-2 season), 65K, 76K, 73K, 65K, 60K

Average of above nine attendance averages (and yes, I know that's not truly statistically accurate, but it's close enough): Dalis 57.9K, Guerrero 65.2K.

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Men's Basketball

We have had eight full seasons of basketball with Guerrero as AD, so I'm comparing those to the last eight years of basketball with Dalis as AD: 1994-95 to 2001-02. That included the last two years of Jim Harrick and the first six years of CHP (see the Lexicon if you're not sure who that is). Guerrero's tenure has included the last year of CHP and seven full years of Ben Howland. I have not included any of this basketball season in anything other than attendance. For ease of phrasing, I'll again just use 'Dalis' and 'Guerrero' rather than 'coaches under Dalis' etc.

Overall record, Dalis as AD: 181-68, for .727. Guerrero as AD: 176-91, for .659.

Pac-10 record, Dalis: 107-38,  .738. Guerrero: 97-58,  .626.

Pac-10 finishes in rank order, Dalis: 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6; average 2.75. Guerrero: 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7; average 3.25.

NCAA Tournament finishes, worst to best:

     Dalis: two first round losses (one later vacated - JaRon Rush issues), four Sweet Sixteen, one Elite Eight, Banner #11

     Guerrero: 3 times watching on TV, one first round, one second round, three Final Fours (one to championship game)

What about attendance, you ask? Pauley's official capacity is 12,819, though the record is 13,478 for a game with Duke on February 23, 1997. Here is the average attendance from each year, straight from the official site. For the first few years of the time frame in consideration, I can't find much more than the year's average. Starting with 1998-99 I've followed that with the number of games with over 10,000 fans, and after 1999-2000 also the least-attended game of the year.

1994-95: 11,400

1995-96: 11,872

1996-97: 10,240

1997-98: 10,739

1998-99: 10,130  /  9 over 10K

1999-2000: 9,440  /  6  /  6,531 vs. Morgan State

2000-01: 8,765  /  5  /  6,448 vs. CSUN

2001-02: 10,021  /  7  /  6,704 vs. UC Riverside

(Guerrero takes over July 2002)

2002-03: 8,348  /  3  /  5,376 vs. NAU

2003-04: 9,332  /  5  /  7,240 vs. Loyola Marymount

2004-05: 9,213  /  7  /  5,033 vs. Western Illinois (scheduled at 7:30 the day before Thanksgiving - brilliant!)

2005-06: 8,895  /  7  /  6,044 vs. Coppin State

2006-07: 10,428  /  10  /  7,458 vs. Sam Houston State

2007-08: 10,580  /  11  /  7,293 vs. Cal State San Bernardino

2008-09: 9,843  /  10  /  6,852 vs. Loyola Marymount

2009-10: 8,081  /  3  /  5,933 vs. New Mexico State

2010-11 through the home game Dec. 31 vs. Washington: 6,723  /  0 (most in past usually in league play) / 5,390 vs. Montana State

Interestingly, only one more person showed up to watch the "game" against Montana than the win 11 days later against Montana State. There were a total of three games with attendance under 6K in the eleven seasons from 1999-2000 through 2009-10; there have already been four this year.

(Random NCAA fact: the team with the highest average attendance last year was Kentucky, with 24,111. The lowest? Nicholls State, with a whopping 328 fans per game. Guess there's a lot else to do in Thibodaux, Louisiana!)

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OK, I've thrown a lot of data out there for your consideration. Talk amongst yourselves...