UCLA Football: Jim Mora's Coaching Staff Reset
by AHMB on Jan 3, 2012 1:00 PM PST
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PrintWith only a day to go before the recruiting restrictions during dead period are lifted, Coach Mora appears to have nearly filled his staff. To date, the following names have been announced as Mora's assistant coaches:
Offensive Line: Adrian Klemm
Running Backs: Steve Broussard
Tight Ends: Marques Tuiasosopo
Defensive Line: Inoke Breckerfield
Defensive Backs: Demetrice Martin
That leaves Offensive Coordinator, Defensive Coordinator, Special Teams Coach, and one position coach to fall under the nine assistant coach limit. A team can also have two graduate assistants, a strength and conditioning coach, and unlimited undergraduate assistants.
We'll take a look at some of this candidates to fill the slots after the jump.
Offensive Coordinator
All signs point to Noel Mazzone as Jim Mora's future offensive coordinator. Mazzone was at the top our list when we looked at potential offensive coordinators a few weeks ago, and it's refreshing to see a coach make such a strong hire. We have an an excellent series of posts put up by jtthirtyfour shedding some light on Mazzone's offense here,here, here and here.
Defensive Coordinator
Again, it does appear that Jim Mora has made a hire to fill this slot. It has been rumored repeatedly that John Pagano will be hired as DC before recruiting period opens tomorrow. Pagano is the current San Diego Chargers linebackers coach and brother of current Baltimore Ravens DC, Chuck Pagano.
If true, the hiring of Pagano makes a lot of sense. He is a longtime NFL position coach who can essentially play the role of linebacker coach and defensive coordinator. Due to the fact that Coach Mora is a former NFL defensive backs coach and coordinator, Mora will undoubtedly play a role in coordinating the defense as well. The limitation on the number of coaches essentially requires the coordinators to double up as position coaches, and Pagano is a damn good linebackers coach.
It isn't clear if Pagano's hiring means a switch to a 3-4, and we'll wait to hear more when the final announcement is made. You can read IE Angel's impressive preview on Coach Pagano and the 3-4 here, which gives you much more information than the San Diego Chargers bio available here.
It should be noted that as of this morning, the Chargers have not officially fired HC Norv Turner and no announcements have been made regarding his staff. It's worth keeping a close eye on the situation in San Diego.
Special Teams
Once again, this position does appear to be filled by yet another NFL coach. Jeff Ulbrich was special teams stud during his playing days in San Francisco and played linebacker there while Mora was the 49ers defensive coordinator. He has been serving as a Special Teams Assistant in Seattle for the past two years. You can read his short bio here.
I won't pretend to know whether Ulbrich will make a good special teams coach or not, but I can say that Seattle's special teams unit has been impressive. They are extremely aggressive and mirror Ulbrich's personality. They also gave up a couple touchdown returns to the 49ers.
Position Coach
Eric Yarber - There have been a lot of rumors swirling that Yarber will be hired as the wide receivers coach. Yarber worked with Dennis Erickson from 1998-2009, minus a two year stint at UW under Tyrone Willingham while Erickson was on hiatus, and spent a year with Mazzone at Oregon St. in 2002. Yarber has been Tampa Bay's WR coach under Raheem Morris, but Morris and his entire staff was recently let go leaving Yarber unemployed. If Mora can land Yarber, he would be a great addition.
Mike Johnson - Our receiver play improved this year, and I would support keeping Mike Johnson on the staff as WR coach. Coach Johnson is a good recruiter and probably will not have to wait too long to have his own program.
Strength and Conditioning Coach
This is arguably Coach Mora's most important hire, and is one of the most difficult for outsiders to gauge. There are rumors that Mora is courting Ivan Lewis, the current S&C coach at UW. You can read his bio here. He has a video about his training philosophy here - it's nothing jaw dropping, but you can get an idea of his style. It should be noted that Ivan Lewis worked as an assistant S&C coach, and worked closely with quarterbacks and linebackers according to his bio. This means that he worked with Brian Cushing and Clay Matthews. I'll let you connect the dots there.
Other names that we have brought up are Ryan Russell, Kaz Kazadi, and Sal Alosi. We have no idea whether these guys are being looked at, but they should be.
Ryan Russell - Russell is Auburn's Asst Strength and Conditioning Coach at Auburn, but is a Southern California native (Palm Springs) who may be looking to come home.
Kaz Kazadi - Baylor has improved over the past few years, and it can partially be attributed to the work put in off the field. Kazadi is Baylor's Assistant Athletic Director and Athletic Performance.
Sal Alosi - The former Jets S&C coach who resigned after "tripgate" last year. He's currently working at Bryant University in Rhode Island as their S&C coach, but his NFL pedigree is hard to ignore.
Associate AD for Football
Jim Mora has apparently hired Dennis Slutak as Associate AD for Football. This is not a coaching position and therefore not subject to the NCAA limitation on coaches. Slutak worked directly under Pete Carroll as Director of Football Operations, which is most likely the same job description with a different name. There was a NY Times piece describing his duties in 2006, which essentially amount to logistics.
Frankly, I think this is a shrewd move on Mora's part. As much as us Bruins despise Cheaty Petey, he was one of the only head coaches to make a successful transition from the NFL to college. One of the main differences between the collegiate programs and the NFL is the coach runs the entire program in college while they "simply" coach in the NFL. It's wise to have someone that not only knows how to run a program, but knows how to run a program with an ex-NFL head coach at the helm.
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I was under the impression Mazzone was a done deal?
Other than that question, none of the hires blow me away right now. But, of course as with the last 10 or so years, I’ll just have to ‘wait and see.’
Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. ~ Vince Lombardi
Could this be the same strategy taken with basketball's McCrary hire?
Meaning that he’s not limited on his access to recruits because he’s not under contract. This would explain why he hasn’t been officially hired. Just a thought
by abasketballfan on Jan 3, 2012 7:03 PM PST up reply actions
Still concerned about the defensive side of the ball...
… as Mora seems to be thin on collegiate-level experience.
Pagano? Never coached in college.
Breckterfield? 1st eyar as a Div. 1 position coach was LAST YEAR.
Martin? Guy was the DB coach for a defense that gave us an Alamo bowl that EVERYONE will remember.
I know, I know – defense is arguably a better place to install NFL coaches because fundamentals are fundamentals. True, but in the NFL, football is your full-time job. In college, football is your practice-restricted-by-NCAA hobby. There’s only so much you can get done in any practice session without stupid-over-the-wall stunts, so I’d like to make sure we have guys coaching defense who can teach defensive fundamentals and techniques effectively — more bang for the buck, so to speak.
M
"It's not who you are underneath. It's what you DO that defines you."
*That's thin on ASSISTANTS WITH collegiate experience.
M
"It's not who you are underneath. It's what you DO that defines you."
You were right the first time
Our new coach’s only college experience was in 1984 as a graduate assistant. I think describing that as thin is putting it mildly.
Obvioulsy giving up 775 yards of offense is scary. But to be fair.
Baylor RAN for almost 500 yards.
That secondary did hold RG3 to only 1 TD through the air.
But it is tough seeing any defensive coach go through that.
"I have one word for you...Be careful."
-Jose Guillen
Your later comments mirror my feelings right now.
There are other teams that have defended against spread offenses with success. Mora & staff don’t need to come in and invent entirely new defensive schemes (though, as a defensive coach, I’d love to see him come up with some innovative way of combating it).
I would honestly rather have somebody who will teach strong fundamentals, and just copy other defensive schemes, than somebody who will come up with crazy new schemes that our players can’t execute. Though, preferably, we’ll get both.
I'm not really sure
what this “defending the spread” means. If the spread is run well, it is ridiculously hard to defend. Let’s look at the conference:
Oregon
Their 3 worst offensive outings were against LSU, UW and U$C.
They lost to LSU, who IMHO just has superior athletes on defense. Doesn’t really matter what defense they run.
They lost to U$C, who has superior athletes, but incidentally is run by a long-time NFL guy.
And against UW, I guess they were just off?
Arizona
They lost plenty of games, but only twice scored less than 21: against Oklahoma State and Stanford. I think Stanford still runs a NFL-type defense that Fangio set up
Arizona State
Only once scored less than 27, against Illinois.
So I will say again, after my post about correlations, it’s not the defense that matters, it’s the differential between points scored on offense and points allowed on defense. In short, a team that on average scores 30 points and allows 20 will do better than a team that scores 20 and allows 15.
You really only beat a well-run spread by outscoring it and making a few key plays. Just my opinion…
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Pac 12 Defense
Perhaps Mora is planning on building a monster defense to deal with all the different high powered offenses in the Pac 12 ???
I think his words were
that he wanted a meek and docile defense that would get “steamrolled” by the competition.
again.....
This will bring talent to UCLA and I am really confident that these coaches can pull it off. Seems to me that these hirings are like an assembly of a hit squad that means business.
Moras NFL ties are a huge plus to UCLA! Like i said before.
How are his "NFL ties" related to any of this?
His position coaches are rooted in the college game and are known to be great recruiters. His OC is rooted in the college game and runs the spread which is not an NFL feature. If anything, his hires reveal that he himself is aware of his own shortcomings, one of which being his lack of familiarity with the college game. I think it’s great that he is self aware and is addressing his own weaknesses, and for that he deserves credit. You, however, do not, and it’s hilarious that you’re trying to take a victory lap when your premise is even more flawed than it was when you first said it.
Might turn out a good combo...
Mora might be seen as the NFL overseer, knowing what it takes to make it to the next level.
The coaches, knowing how to coach at the college level, could give Mora the lowdown on how to handle the college athlete, create a system that works on the college level, schooling Mora on where the line is between too much (NFL) and what works for college.
It’s all speculation one way or the other. We won’t really know until year two.
Occam's Razor
If you have to contort and concoct a scenario like that just so Seven2k7 is half correct, it’s probably wrong. Once he brought on guys like Klemm, Broussard, and Martin, that’s as good as an admission by Mora himself that stuff like “NFL ties” isn’t going to cut it in the recruits’ living rooms. You need the guys with the relationships and the experience to make a difference and sell a vision on the college level. College coaches across the country have no need for “NFL ties” to recruit well, including our last coach (unless you think he was really hammering hard on that Ravens experience, which I highly doubt). I only feel compelled to respond because this guy is running around all smug when all indications are that he’s wrong, and that his interpretation of the data is hilariously bad.
Like I said, it's all speculation...
one way or the other.
But, the razor might agree with you…
“You need the guys with the relationships and the experience to make a difference and sell a vision on the college level. "
I think we both agree that UCLA has a giant hole to climb out of. We’ll have to see if this staff has the ladders.
Aliens also might have descended from space
And held our current recruits’ families hostage unless they signed with UCLA. All speculation.
I don't think outer space aliens do that, Ty
They generally do a lot of damage for about an hour or so, then get wiped out. I’m pretty sure they don’t hold recruits’ families hostage. At least not the outser space guys I’m familiar with.
Mike Johnson
Do you really think that Johnson would take a demotion to WR coach? I would think he could get the same gig, with better pay, in the NFL or get a coordinator position somewhere else…but I base that on generality, I don’t know that job market.
by RealisticBruinFan on Jan 3, 2012 3:58 PM PST reply actions
Delay Proves - Dan Does it Again....
During the interview that Nestor posted this weekend, in which TJSimers ran amok, Coach Mora said he hoped to announce the rest of his staff Monday or Tuesday, because the current recruiting “dead” period ends TONIGHT (Tuesday), so that Wednesday the 4th they could be out recruiting.
4 pm on the west coast — no announcements.
Did everyone notice how quickly UW fired two defensive coaches, announced the subsequent hiring of replacements, and have already hosted press conferences for the new coaches?
All in the same span of time it takes Dan to get through a coupla dozen donuts while he’s “strapping on,” or “strapping up” or wherever or however he straps. This is typical mismanagement and bureaucratic slothfulness.
Brock Osweller Transfer Rumors
://arizona.sbnation.com/arizona-st-sun-devils/2012/1/3/2680026/brock-osweiler-arizona-state-sun-devils-rumors
Can he pull a Dayne Crist?
And play right away if he were to follow Mazzone here?
Yes, and the rumor seems to be gaining momentum.
From what I’ve read on the Pac 12 site, etc., is he could play next year because he graduates in May and can enroll as a graduate student provided that the degree is not offered at ASU.
http://arizonasports.com/44/1483017/ESPN-report-Osweiler-could-leave-ASU
Most kids worth recruiting are thinking about the NFL. Dillusional or not!
Mora’s got enough info per 20 yrs around NFL coaches talent and GM’s.
That is big in the living rooms of recruits where I’ve spent alot of time. Parents and kids alike, all ask about it. So you school them on the NFL, if you can. Why wouldn’t you?
If you’re smart, you’ll be aided by a qualified NCAA recruiter, to help form the conversation into an NCAA one, away from the dream of the NFL, and bring the family down to earth.
Almost every qualified recruit and their parents are thinking NFL. Dreamers, I call’em. It’s okay to dream. But not giving credit to someone from the NFL usually means the lack of knowledge of that person’s knoweledge of it. Carroll had a major influence on recruits @ $C, and I was in some of those living rooms. Let’s give Mora a shot, and not knock his resume. He’s only spent his whole life constructing his resume, like the rest of us!
Mora & Recruiting
In several interviews Mora has said that each recruit and his family has different concerns and questions but in general it goes like this; 1) A good education, 2) How does the recruit figure into the teams plans and 3) Will he be prepared for the NFL.
If this were an NBA conversation, pre-one and done rule
This would make sense. But all football recruits and their families know that they will be in college (or out of high school) for a set amount of time before they can ever declare for the draft. So downplaying the college environment and skipping right to three years down the road just doesn’t pass the smell test. You know what’s better than talking about knowing what it takes in the NFL? A track record of putting players there. That’s proof. That’s real. That’s the hurdle we have to clear when going up against established college coaches who have successfully put their recruits into the NFL. They have a better pitch than we do. That’s why we needed top notch recruiters who can convince these guys, with no evidence to speak of, that the UCLA program will prepare them for the next level.
Maybe they tell the recruit that our crappy play will make it likely that they'll be starting before they know it.
Or maybe the recruit will say that he will be starting anywhere he goes, and would prefer to play for a team that doesn’t get beaten to smithereens every time they’re on national TV.
Judging by what I have read and heard about these other coaches it seems like Mora is the weakest link
"Winners Then, Winners Now... Bruin in Madrid"
by uclaprofe on Jan 3, 2012 6:17 PM PST via iPhone app reply actions
You do have to give him credit for getting the other coaches though
There are some coaches that are too insecure about their own abilities to go after and surround themselves with the best. Mora seems to have some pretty clear weaknesses, and it looks like he has done his best to address them through his assistants. I like that ability to scout himself, and I hope that carries over to how he coaches the team. Identifying your own team’s weaknesses is huge, as Ben Howland seems to find out repeatedly year after year now.
Could be, we'll see.
I’m sure his father would disagree, but that’s cause he’s dad.
But dad has aloooooooot of experience to make that call.
I'll knock Mora, if he falls on his face.
Right now, I’ll just watch and see.
But some of his new coaches are well liked by recruits.
Good Sign
For what its worth I think it is a good sign when someone shows enough self awareness to recognize their own shortcomings, we have to give Coach Mora at least that much. And lets be honest, self awareness is something that has been sorely lacking at UCLA, just look at DG CRN and Block
Pagano is off the list
Norv Turner wisely promoted Coach Pagano to be the DC for the Chargers. However, as I posted elsewhere, Mora had backup plans in place. Coach Mora understands the coaching game, including the staffing side of it. He is not Chianti Dan.
http://ucla.ocregister.com/2012/01/05/ucla-football-mora-moves-on-to-plan-b/61025/
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