A quick note re expectations for Jim Mora in his first football season as the head coach of the UCLA program. In number of posts in recent months we have been discussing a general parameter of our expectations for the 2012 football season, which ranges around 8 to 9 regular season victories and a win over Southern Cal at the Rose Bowl.

As always the discussions around expectations (which are not necessarily predictions) generate a lot of discussion and passionate back and forth. That is all good and as Mora noted himself he is also a believer of our high (but reasonable) expectations. He also expects UCLA to win this year.

So we are not going to back away from it. But there is also another angle here which puts some urgency around the expectations for next year. Let me serve up a tweet from Bryan Fischer of CBS:

Dan Guerrero folks. RT @lukezim: Via @BrianMFloyd, Jim Mora is the second highest paid coach in the Pac-12. That's the joke.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) April 22, 2012

He then responded to another tweet on the same topic with this:

@JonnyChardonay Nothing. But 2nd highest paid HC in the league without ever coaching a down in college? Ok then.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) April 22, 2012

Now Bryan is a Trojan honk (he used to write for a Trojan site and IIRC is a Trojan alum), but IMHO his observations are on point. The joke after all here is Dan Guerrero.

Mora is getting paid decent chunk of change for never coaching a college game. While we are very encouraged with what we have seen from him on the recruiting front, his hiring decisions and the spring practice reports to date, the fact remains that we will need to see results on the field.

It's really not about Mora. It's more about Chianti. If Gene Block cared about UCLA athletics, Guerrero should have been canned months ago. If the football team doesn't show discernible progress (and we will know and improve product when we see it) next season, it should be one more datapoint on why the highest paid AD in the Pac-12should be shown the door from Westwood.

Carry on.

GO BRUINS.