Dueling Media Narratives: Comparing the Tales of Two Programs

These last few seasons have been difficult to endure for sure but, on the one hand, you certainly can’t fault CRN for his recruiting efforts; he has certainly brought in a ton of talent. I think the blunt truth is that you’ve not only got to be good, you have to have a little luck go your way as well and obviously this last season we didn’t.

I don’t know if this is a good analogy or not but in his first three years in Iowa City, Kirk Ferentz won like a total of seven games before the ‘02 season when KF took Iowa on a tear with an 11-1 record before the Hawkeyes lost to those thugs across town. In any event, I hope we can enjoy the same type of scenario in CRN’s fourth year in Westwood.

Not that it matters. The big differences are that he beat his rival the both of his years there (no real feat what that is WSU) and beat $C both years as well. Personally, i think Locker was overrated and while a great athlete, not a great decision maker. I do think that the bowl win over Nebraska was not so impressive, that team was schizophrenic last year and lived off the early season hype long after they started to slide.

If CRN beats $C last year, he is probably not on the hot seat. Hell, if he had gone for it on 4th down during the $C game he might not be on my hot doghouse.

Whatever happens, I like CRN’s coaching moves in the off-season. Even if the names aren’t premier, they seem like they are ready to be aggresive. I am cautiously optomistic, we have athletes, the Bruins need to just put it together.

I hope our BRUINS have a fantastic year in all sports. I am hoping Rick gets his team playing with all cylinders and that we kick that other team in LA’s butt! GO BRUINS!

The narratives are interesting, and it’s clearly worth discussing. But I do disagree with some of your take here.

First, we are not comparing two 11-14 programs; we are comparing an 11-14 program with a program that was 11-14 and then regressed with a 4-8 season. Going into last year, we all felt UCLA was on the upswing: CRN seemed to have made some progress from year 1 to year 2, and (very importantly) was bringing in a raft of top-rated prospects, going head to head with $c and not just settling for scraps like the previous administration.

Right now, CRN is on the hot seat because the team – even accounting for injuries – looked woefully underprepared last season. So far, CRN has achieved very little of substance – signature wins over bad Tennessee and Texas teams, and conference records of 3-6, 3-6 and 2-7. Our best win is probably the bowl win in difficult conditions against a Temple program who people thought might be surging, until they regressed the following year. If you compare best wins for each program in the first two years of their coach, the wins Sarkisian owns over $c beat anything CRN achieved in the first three years, and both coaches have had some beatdown losses (I think our 59-0 loss to an eventual 10-2 BYU team was probably the worst loss either coach has had)
 
The main reason to be optimistic about CRN is that his great recruiting should be setting the stage for sustained excellence on the field – but for now, all we have to go on is potential, not on achievement. He is on the warm seat right now – unlikely to get fired at the end of year 4 unless he has a real catastrophe, but unlikely to be retained by UCLA if he doesn’t have the program outlook looking rosy at the end of year 5.

On the specifics of the UW/UCLA program comparisons:
1) I think you overstate Locker when you declare him “an NFL franchise level talent”; I think that was what people were saying when he was a freshman, but when he still can’t throw the ball with any accuracy on leaving UW, I think expectations have been seriously modified. He is now seen as more of a project-with-upside at the next level – one with the potential to be an NFL starter, but nothing like an Andrew Luck, considered a Peyton Manning-esque can’t-miss guy. That being said, Locker really was a great college QB, so your main point is totally valid.

2) Even with Locker on the shelf at UW, the lack of talent you need to have to go winless is pretty extraordinary. I do not know enough about their specifics – e.g. for us, I can point to positions where not only did we not have much veteran talent when CRN took over, we didn’t have much raw talent coming up from the recruiting, but for UW I have no idea if their winless year had talented but inexperienced players, or just total lack of talent. The question is – Locker aside – how bare was UW’s cupboard? I totally agree with you that we need to look beyond simple win/loss trajectories, and not fall into easy media narratives, but I don’t know enough about the relative state of program Sarkisian inherited vs CRN.

3) If we are looking at the impact of a single player – how would Sarkisian have done without Locker – it makes me wonder how many wins CRN would have had without NFL talent Brian Price, particularly when you see how stud sophomores Ayers and Moore suddenly looked ineffective when Price wasn’t creating havoc up front. If Price had not signed with the program under CTS, it’s not a huge stretch to say we would have lost 2 more games in 2008 and 2 more games in 2009 (looking at wins of less than a touchdown). I agree that UW would definitely have lost 2 more games in 2009 without Locker, and probably 4 more games in 2010; I just think ‘Sarkisian has done nothing without Locker’ is only marginally more justifiable than ‘CRN has done nothing without Price’

We have had 3 years of CRN, and have not achieved much; but his recruiting to date gives rightful cause for some continued faith. I am pulling hard for him to succeed, as I think he is a good guy at heart, a Bruin to the core, and has the energy and style needed to compete in this town. But, if he cannot translate his recruiting and salesmanship into a product on the field by the end of year 5, we will have to look elsewhere. Next year, he will be fine; but if he doesn’t make signs of progress in year 4 it will make his seat scorching entering year 5.

I think we all have high hopes for this season. While our QBs have been injured for the last several years, that was due in part to the iffy offensive line we fielded. Which, itself, seems to have arisen from some unexpected, crushing injuries.

I think CRN has now fielded a team of coaches who can work with him, and with the talent he has, with no preconceived ideas or favorites.

If we’re healthy I expect us to be competitive against everyone — including against Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship game!

I think some of it has to do with where they are at currently as we underperformed and Sark is on a “hot streak”.

I think UW is getting too much credit, I am not sold he is this special coach yet. He has caught many teams at times that they were down.

My concern for our program is I can not find a coach who took this long to turn a team into a top 10 program. And I think CRN is having trouble getting the level of talent he did early with the on field struggles. I think there is enough talent here to win the south or at least be a ranked program.

It’s time to see the team compete and be a creative and fundamental football team every week. I love what I have heard and seen from the new coaches.

Has simply been the eye test. Had he amassed this disappointing record in spite of being aggressive and imaginative in his game coaching, I think many would be much more hopeful going into next year. But in addition to all the injuries and poor luck I think people are simply hungover from the appalling sight of someone we all thought to be a bold gunslinger coaching like a Donahue clone. You get the sense that his prior aggressiveness was perhaps due to youthful bravado, more than awareness of the fact that aggressiveness is also wise — which every good coach at every level is aware of.

In addition, his hiring management has been inconsistent. Was Walker forced on him? Then why did he set his defensive program back years by hiring Chuck Bullough, and keeping him for two seasons? Was Chow an excusable mistake given reputation? Then why extend his contract after what we’ve heard to be the appalling reality of Chow’s behind-the-scenes decay? The buddy hires of Reggie Moore also give pause.

Let me say here that I have not given up hope. I liked the offseason changes, and I still think RN may be sharp enough to change in the right way, and leverage his excellent recruiting skills toward a consistently good program (if he has great assistants). But I can’t convince others out of their despair, because I can’t point to anything on the field to substantiate that he truly knows what he’s doing. Comparisons to Sark don’t help, because nobody but wishful thinkers believe that he has proven anything either.

In addition to our o-line issues, our injured/inexperienced quarterback issues, etc, CRN took the rather bold step of working a whole new element, the pistol, into his offense. If we can build momentum in our offense with its being more comfortable executing the pistol and we get better in our passing game, I think we will speak of CRN in much more positive terms. I hope he does well. I’d like to be able to say we watched some creative football development.

… UCLA is one well prepared, competent (not superstar, competent) QB away from being truly competitive. Full disclosure, I am a big CRN fan, so maybe I’m biased. But I think even the best coaches would’ve had a tough time fielding a winning program with the rash of injuries they experienced last year (s), especially at the QB position. You just can’t compete in modern football without a QB who can get it done. At one point last season – and I don’t know which game, so forgive me – they literally seemed to have half their starting roles on both sides of the line being filled by presumed back-ups. Not saying CRN isn’t responsible for making do with what he has, but I genuinely believe that with just a little luck – meaning fewer injuries this season – UCLA could surprise a lot of people, especially the beat writers who all seem to be picking them to finish at or near the bottom of the conference. Cautiously optimistic… Go Bruins.

We lost last year because there was no accountability among the coaches or the players. After a while they played like they didn’t seem to care.

but who cares about Washington?