Bruin Bites: Grading Mora, Kelyn Rowe Interview, Interesting Take on Howland, and UCLA's Optimists
by Bellerophon on Feb 12, 2012 5:30 PM PST
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It's Sunday evening, which sadly for most folks, means a return to work tomorrow morning. Some people (some government workers, students, school employees, etc.) will get tomorrow off to celebrate the birthday of the greatest American president of all-time, Abraham Lincoln. Most of us, unfortunately, do not, thanks to some genius deciding to roll Lincoln's birthday (traditionally observed on the Monday closest to February 12) and Washington's birthday (traditionally observed the following Monday, closest to his actual birthday of February 22) into the generic "President's Day" on the Monday following next. In other words, instead of getting two three-day weekends in a row, you only get one. That sucks.
But in any event, for those of you who will get to relax and enjoy tomorrow off (and those of you needing something to read before trudging off to work tomorrow), let's take a look at the bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse at the tail-end of the weekend.
- Starting with our football program, Jim Mora seems to be everywhere, with columnists across the country weighing in on his hire at UCLA. Looking at how new coaches recruited, Ben Glicksman at Sports Illustrated gave UCLA's new coach, Jim Mora, a solid A following the awesome recruiting haul Mora brought to Westwood at his first recruiting rodeo. The only coach with a higher mark? Urban Meyer. Other UCLA coaching candidates discussed on BN, including Gus Malzahn (A) Kevin Sumlin (A-), Larry Fedora (B+), and Mike Leach (B). In conference notes, Glicksman gave Cal turncoat Tosh Lupoi an A for his work at Washington (he should get an A+ in our books for helping get McCarthy, Payton, and Lawler to Westwood).
- Brett McMurphy at CBS Sports notes that he and his colleagues at CBS Sports weren't as generous, rating Mora's hire at #15 (out of 26), sandwiched between Houston's Tony Levine (#14) and Southern Miss's Ellis Johnson (#16). At the top was none other than Urban Meyer, who will probably have a national title in Columbus within three seasons. BN targets got high marks: Rich Rodriguez (#2), Mike Leach (#3), Gus Malzahn (#4), Larry Fedora (#7). Chianti's original pick, Kevin Sumlin came in at #5 and former UCLA OC Norm Chow came in at #12.
- Going back to Sports Illustrated, Coach Mora got ranked, but in a somewhat different ranking: comparing and rating the various NFL announcing crews. It seems Coach Mora made a good career move, as Chris Burke at Sports Illustrated ranked Mora and his partner Ron Pitts on Fox as "practice squad" material only. Ouch. In Burke's view, the top tandem is the NFL Network's Brad Nessler and Mike Mayock. Others of note include our own Troy Aikman (and his partner on Fox, Joe Buck) in the third-tier as "reliable backups" and BN favorite Randy Cross (paired with Don Criqui at CBS) on the "practice squad" but mostly because they saw little action.
- Sticking with Mora news, Mike Blum at the Milton Herald took note of Coach Mora's presence in the Atlanta area prep scene, dropping by the north Fulton County area to check out various Class of 2013 recruits, including DL prospect Karl Lawson (who is also being watched by Alabama), RB Peyton Barber, and WR Ryan Jenkins. Mora's familiarity with the area, and his name recognition from his time as Atlanta's head coach, might be opening a new recruiting pipeline to Westwood.
- In general UCLA news, someone in Westwood has finally figured out how to launch a pretty good PR campaign for UCLA: launching the "optimists" campaign and getting a pretty amazing ad into the New York Times. Amazingly, it strike a perfect tone: UCLA needs true optimists, people like Jackie Robinson, who aren't going to accept mediocrity, who are going to strive and push for something greater, to make sure UCLA fulfills all of its amazing potential. We are UCLA and we don't have to settle on being just a great academic school: we can be both amazing in the classroom and amazing in athletics.
- Flipping to non-revenue news, MLS has a neat interview with former UCLA midfield maestro Kelyn Rowe on his transition to becoming a professional athlete, the struggles he's faced, and the challenges he's setting out for himself to succeed at the next level, and the kind of player he sees himself as. We're all pulling for you Kelyn: make UCLA proud (i.e. find a way to the EPL!)
- Finally, switching over to basketball, there's a pretty good read over at The Great Mambino on Ben Howland and "the tragedy of success in the Pac-12." While the post has some pretty bad factual misstatements (i.e. implying that JF and AA graduated from UCLA prior to entering the NBA - correct me if I'm wrong, but they went back to UCLA after entering the NBA to finish their degrees; implying that Mustafa Abdul-Hamid, a great kid by all accounts, "led" UCLA to the tournament with DC; etc.), it does strike the right conclusion and tone at the end:
What’s missing in Westwood is a sense of pride. Bruins never forget where they came from when they look down on the floor at Pauley and see the names Nell and John Wooden staring back at them. To have hope again we don’t need a reminder of the past. We don’t need a coach who has taken us as far as his scheme allows. What we need now is a coach who can remind us of where we need to be and teach our players how to get there.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Alright folks, those are your Bruin Bites for the tail end of the weekend. Fire away in the comment thread with your thoughts, opinions, and takes on these bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse.
GO BRUINS
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I know, try re-reading the original post.
Some people (some government workers, students, school employees, etc.) will get tomorrow off to celebrate the birthday of the greatest American president of all-time, Abraham Lincoln.
Tomorrow is Lincoln’s birthday, a California state holiday, but not a federal holiday.
Most of us, unfortunately, do not, thanks to some genius deciding to roll Lincoln’s birthday (traditionally observed on the Monday closest to February 12) and Washington’s birthday (traditionally observed the following Monday, closest to his actual birthday of February 22) into the generic "President’s Day."
In other words, if I meant President’s Day was tomorrow, I would have not been bemoaning the fact not all of us get tomorrow off. Everyone gets President’s Day off. Only some people get both Lincoln’s birthday and President’s Day (which used to be just called Washington’s birthday) off.
But since folks are not bothering to read, I’ve added a few words to make it clear.
Someone at UCLA deserves a lot of praise for that
There hasn’t nearly been enough of this kind of stuff coming out of UCLA, which is surprising given that our film school is pretty damn good, right Mexi?
I think the ad itself is really good
However, now that I have seen the rollout, I think it is a bit flawed. They launched through a TV ad during the Cal game and the NYT ad. However, there was not really any concerted digital launch component to it. We saw it through tweets of our readers directed at our account and then we immediately blogged/tweeted it.
UCLA should have also sent it to its email list of alums and ask them to share it with others. This brings to even more serious issue/flaw with the microsite itself. Notice there is nothing ont that site that prominently asks alums (or students) to sign up for “updates” or the latest news bits from UCLA. They could have used a successful, multi-platform launch of that ad to collect thousands of email addresses from alums. They failed at that.
UCLA continues to leave huge money on the table for failing to integrate an email campaign component when it comes to outreach to alums. If you notice their emails are clunky and often look like news letters. Don’t even get me started with Chianti’s “blog.”
The theme of the ad is so great but when it comes to digital outreach and organizing, UCLA continues to be more than half a decade behind. It’s a shame really – especially when our school is trying to market itself as one of the places (along with Stanford) where internet was invented.
N, I agree, but...
…do you remember who we’re dealing with here? Baby steps. At least this is one small step in the right direction, even if the execution leaves much to be desired. The mere fact that Murphy Hall even realizes what our school colors are, is well, impressive, given their prior body of work.
Kind of sad, right?
I do appreciate the irony of how terrible UCLA is at utilizing social media and at being internet savvy, despite the university’s role in getting the internet off the ground.
I won't accept "baby steps."
We are UCLA, for (insert politically correct reference)‘s sake! And it’s not like marketing, the Internet, or even social media was just invented yesterday.
I truly believe it’s this almost eagerness on the part of Bruins to accept and excuse mediocrity that has us, at the same time, losing sleep over the mediocrity (on good days) of our football and basketball programs (and I shudder to think of to what special hell Block and Guerror will now condemn our volleyball program) and our overall brand.
No. “Baby steps” should be used as nothing but a condemnation of our beloved university’s administration.
And we must find a way to break the silencing numbness of complacency that has in its grip far too many of our fellow Bruins.
Guerror must go now! And Block must be brought to a drastically new awareness and level of involvement with regard to making ever aspect of UCLA excellent.
by HighDesertBruin on Feb 12, 2012 11:38 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Don't worry HDB
We’re on the same page as you.
I think you missed the sarcasm. ;)
by Bellerophon on Feb 12, 2012 11:46 PM PST up reply actions
Indeed, I did miss the sarcasm, B.
Nonetheless, I do believe most Bruins (ranging from current students to alums to administration) have, since Terry Donahue instilled the Play Not To Lose attitude, increasing accepted the ever lowering standards of We’re Good Enough. And now that we’ve reached the inevitable point of things being clearly not even close to good enough, we also are severely handicapped by the other inevitable outcome of the Good Enough attitude: we have become a body at rest. Physics is not on our side. I can think of no other university whose students and alums would be — overall —so accepting of such a deterioration of their brand. I am dismayed.
by HighDesertBruin on Feb 13, 2012 8:39 AM PST via mobile up reply actions
+1000
former editor, DumpDorrell.com ... formerly posted as DumpDorrell
Good points
It would be nice to see UCLA utilize social media more than it does. But thus far this is the only thing that Murphy Hall has done in a long time that has impressed me. In comparison to the Morgan Center, Murphy Hall looks like it is being run by the guys from Wieden+Kennedy
Optimists ads have errors
First, I love the optimist campaign. As others have said, finally someone at UCLA gets it. Or, maybe someone at UCLA hired an ad agency that gets it. Either way, this is the right campaign for UCLA.
Having said that, there is one big error and another small one that I have found just doing a quick scan of them.
1. Vinton Cerf – the ad for Vinton Cerf says that he was the first Chief Technology Officer of the US, one that Obama appointed. That is simply false and is a glaring factual error. Anyone can look it up. It is Aneesh Chopra (note: he just stepped down from the post last week).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Technology_Officer_of_the_United_States
Here is the wording of the ad:
“Since then, Cerf has been a leading force in every avenue of network communications—from the U.S. Department of Defense to a top executive at Google to being named the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer by President Obama.”
Vinton Cerf was considered for the post but was never offered it.
2. John Wooden ad. Of course, who wouldn’t look to Wooden’s ad for inspiration and greatness. Well, there is a glaring error, in my opinion (though I know some might disagree).
“At UCLA, Wooden was free and encouraged to instill his unique coaching ethos—one that defined success as peace of mind from knowing you put forth your absolute effort, regardless of the outcome.”
So, who puts forth “absolute effort?” Is there anything less than absolute effort? Aren’t, technically, all efforts absolute? There could be worst efforts, that are also absolute in their poor quality. There could be half-baked efforts that are also absolute in their lack of full effort.
What is obviously missing, in my opinion, is the word ‘best,’ as in “absolute best effort.” I think when representing an icon such as Wooden it is imperative that you get the representation right. Wooden would not have missed that word. Neither should we.
Other than these two errors that I found in quick time, I really think these optimist ads are great. Lets do more of that!!
former editor, DumpDorrell.com ... formerly posted as DumpDorrell
Great catches, BC.
I agree completely with your criticism of “absolute effort” and that what is missing — unfortunately so perfectly reflective of the state of the UCLA brand — is “best.”
by HighDesertBruin on Feb 13, 2012 8:43 AM PST via mobile up reply actions
Admittedly
I wasn’t sleuthing for anything. I caught the Vern Cerf error simply because I once knew Aneesh Chopra and thought, wait, that’s wrong. And what UCLA grad wouldn’t read the Wooden ad?
former editor, DumpDorrell.com ... formerly posted as DumpDorrell
Vern = Vinton
former editor, DumpDorrell.com ... formerly posted as DumpDorrell
They fixed the Vinton Cerf ad
I twittered to @UCLA that the Vinton Cerf ad had a factual error. In 2 days they corrected it. Now the ad reads:
“Since then, Cerf has been a leading force in every avenue of network communications—from the U.S. Department of Defense to a top executive at Google.”
So, they fixed it in pretty good time. They have not fixed, however, the Wooden ad.
former editor, DumpDorrell.com ... formerly posted as DumpDorrell
Georgia Pipeline
Mora’s familiarity with the area, and his name recognition from his time as Atlanta’s head coach, might be opening a new recruiting pipeline to Westwood.
Love it! We signed two Georgia recruits this year, have one committed already for next year, and have several other offers out there. We should capitalize on this recruiting momentum in Georgia by scheduling a series with Georgia and/or Georgia Tech.
Georgia Tech’s schedule is filled with 2 SEC teams per year through 2022, so we’d be unlikely to schedule them until 2023.
We could schedule Georgia as soon as 2015/16, which would be in time to allow Orjioke and Harris (plus future recruits from GA) to play in their home state. Typical SEC scheduling is all about easy OOC games and not leaving your state/region. However, UGA scheduled Ohio State for 2021/22, while also contacting Penn State, Michigan, and Notre Dame (Michigan and Notre Dame turned UGA down).
Here’s how our OOC schedule would look if we postponed our UNLV series to schedule UGA:
UCLA 2015
9/5 – Virginia
9/12 – at UNLV Georgia
9/19 – Nevada
UCLA 2016
9/3 – at Rutgers
9/10 – UNLV Georgia
9/17 – at Nevada
Our normal/historic scheduling has been playing an A, B, and C level opponent. With UNLV, I would say that 2015 would be A- (Virginia), C (UNLV), and C (Nevada) and 2016 replaces A- (Virginia) with B (Rutgers). Replacing UNLV with UGA would rate as: A-, A, C in 2015 (aggressive schedule) and B, A, C in 2016 (normal). Even though 2015 would be very challenging, I have no problem with a one year scheduling aboration, as long as it was done for a very strategic purpose (i.e. establishing a major new recruiting pipeline).
Nope
I don’t think we should be scheduling Georgia in 2015 when we already have another power BCS conference team in VA. Similarly we should be scheduling Georgia in 2016 either game against Rutgers on the road.
UNLV is fine int hat slot (although we should have never agreed to play a road game at UNLV). We can think about Georgia the year after when we have open slots for a BCS conference team. We shouldn’t be scheduling more than one BCS opponent for our OOC schedule. That is not smart scheduling for reasons discussed extensively before.
If that's the case...
…then we will never schedule Georgia or Georgia Tech. Larry Scott made an agreement with the Big Ten that all PAC-12 schools must schedule a Big Ten football opponent every year starting 2017, so we already have 1 BCS opponent on our OOC through infinity (we just don’t know who it is yet).
Good point
But I think the general thought is still valid: we need to be selective in how we set up our OOC and be sure to protect UCLA and not set ourselves up for failure.
Agreed
That Rutgers game could be tough, considering the travel, especially if it’s an early game on the East Coast. It really depends on how they do with their new coach, but I probably shouldn’t have discounted that game so much…
Well...
there’s BCS opponent (Georgia)…and there’s BCS opponent (Duke…Kansas…Indiana). I guess you never know, we could end up catching a team on an upswing (I’m looking at you, Houston). Clearly, the best formula is BCS + 2 mid-majors.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Fun Facts re: UCLA vs UGA
We’ve played UGA only twice in our history. First, in the 1942 Rose Bowl game (we lost 9-0).
We also played them at Georgia (apparently we didn’t get a home-and-home series out of it) in 1983 (we lost 19-8).
In that 1983 season, our 3 OOC games were Georgia (10-1-1), Nebraska (12-1), and BYU (11-1)!! We lost all 3 OOC games. However, we went on to go 6-1-1 in PAC-10 play, beat USC, play in the 1984 Rose Bowl, and beat #4 Illinois 45-9 (led by MVP Rick Neuheisel).
I'd love to play Georgia
And hopefully that can happen in a manner that still protects UCLA’s OOC schedule, so we’re not playing “neutral site” games in the freakin’ Georgia Dome. Also, schedules do get changed a lot, so I’d be willing to bet the OOC projected schedule for 2015 and forward will not be the same as it actually is come 2015.
by Bellerophon on Feb 13, 2012 10:21 AM PST up reply actions
Let's just play them
in a BCS game!
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Great fan bases
I had a comment that included the likes of Michigan, Michigan State, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama…great fan bases from opponents we have had in the past. I think the Nebraska game would be fun too.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
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