FanPost

UCLA Football: Lack of Accountability & Leadership in Dan Guerrero's Program

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Bumped. Good read for this weekend. - BN Editors.

It will soon be 20 years since UCLA has won a PAC championship.

I’m going to be frank. I don’t think most UCLA fans know what a real football championship feels like. At the current tack, I think Utah has a better chance of winning a PAC-12 championship. I think we are light years away from winning a national championship. And most importantly, I think our football program is failing to live up to its potential.

I am passionate about this program. Believe it or not, I began writing this post at the end of the Dorrell era, but for various reasons never finished it. Coming back to it now, it is tough for me to see how little my sentiments regarding our program have changed. I feel a need to speak up.

I read an excellent post here earlier today that mentioned the word "malaise." I wouldn’t say I feel malaise. What I do feel is that I have been lulled into a great slumber by the Donut football teams that have been force-fed to us by Dan Guerrerror and his reign of Terror. But if you do feel malaise, I think the reason is clear:

The UCLA football program has stagnated. The on-field results are predictable and uninspiring.

The following is my personal gestalt of why the program has entered its current state. I think all-in-all there are two main things that much change if our program is to turn around: lack of accountability and lack of leadership.

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Al great programs have this in common: Their coaches and athletes are held to standards of greatness. I refer not only to the perennial powerhouses like Oregon, but also to teams who perform to the best of their abilities akin to the Wooden pyramid. UCLA as an institution has clearly not been held accountable for the football teams they are putting on the field. Instead, they have settled for the kiss of death in terms of success: Compromise.

How are teams held accountable?

Programs like Alabama, Auburn, Ohio State, and perhaps to a lesser degree Notre Dame have a fan base that demands excellence and on-field results. When these teams do not perform, coaches, athletic directors, and school officials come under fire. Does anyone believe that fans at any of the above schools would have permitted the last three coaching hires UCLA has made? Do you think they would have accepted a coach saying "punting is winning?" I would have been scared to say that as a coach out there. We have now hired three coaches with minimal or dubious head-coaching experience and questionable success at any level. Although we see a strong vein of resistance to this trend amongst blogs such as BruinsNation, overall there has been a lot of what I think is misplaced hope by most Bruins fans that things will turn around. Hence the lowering of standards and the willingness to accept average season after average season. Compromise.

Not every great program has these type of fans, however. Some great programs have program directors, coaches, or other benefactors that are passionate about football and buy into the idea of creating an elite program. Oregon would certainly fit into this category with Phil Knight. Does anyone think that Oregon could field the football teams we have over the last 10 years with Phil Knight on the sidelines?

If UCLA is ever going to win another PAC championship or go to the college football playoff, some way, somehow, the program must be held accountable for its results. UCLA fans on the whole seem to have accepted the current athletic department party line. I can’t think of anything more damning than the fact that it has been almost 20 years since we have won a PAC championship, and I think fans need to get serious about this. Dan Guerrero is not passionate about cultivating a winning football culture here. I have yet to see him get angry or show any real feeling about our failure to obtain a championship. In fact, it is my personal opinion that Dan could care less if we win a PAC championship while he is director. That is a very insulting comment to make towards an athletic director, but I doubt he would care if he read it. The fact is he has not taken the steps towards making a championship possible. His now-extensive track record of numerous careless decisions or outright negligence, particularly with respect to his coaching "searches," if they can be called that, is well-documented. Gene Blockhead has been clueless, unwilling, or uninterested in taking this matter seriously. Aside from letting Donut Dan’s reign of Terror continue, he has failed to support the program in the way it needs to take it to the next level.

LACK OF LEADERSHIP:

Lack of accountability and lack of leadership go hand in hand. Without one, the other is inevitable, and it creates a downward spiral of mediocrity.

The lack of accountability in our UCLA football program has led to what I will refer to as the Culture of Donut: Going through the motions to keep your job. I think a prime example of the effects of this culture occurred during this last off-season. After two years of solid – albeit not great – football results, there was buzz about the UCLA program that it might make a real move into the football elite. Instead, it has become increasingly clear that numerous compromises were made. One of the most important came in the way of our new defensive coordinator hire Jeff Ulbrich. We replaced a strong defensive coordinator in Spanos with an unproven newbie. To have a championship team you must have a championship defense. Does anyone think that this hire was a step towards creating a championship defense? If you were the coach, the AD, or ANYONE within the athletic department, would you approve the hiring of someone with zero defensive coordinator experience to lead a team with college playoff hopes? This is simply not how championships are made. And yet, very few people made any fuss.

These boneheaded decisions by our UCLA football program "leaders" are a sign of the Culture that pervades the very core of this program. Leadership does not compromise on the important stuff. Leaders expect excellence of themselves, and then they do everything in their power to achieve it. As mentioned, Donut Dan and his enabler Gene Blockhead are the prime villains in this seemingly endless saga of lackluster football teams. Then there are the coaches they have hired. Are these the type of hires you expect from a program that wants to "win championships?" We already got a verdict on Dorrell and Neuheisel. Although they were stand-up people and great Bruins- and let’s not forget that- they were far from being capable, adept, commanding head football coaches. They were light years away from being national championship coaches. Now we have Mora. He’s passionate and I’m willing to hold out a final verdict on him until the end of this year, but I personally think the signs are clear that the program has plateaued. One of the most difficult parts of all this is that even if we do hire a great football coach, I am not sure that the support and accountability is there from the program as a whole to engender a winning culture.

Despite the years of underwhelming results, I truly believe that UCLA has the potential to become a PAC champion again. UCLA remains a top university, in a great location, surrounded by a region with numerous talented athletes, and the monetary support necessary to make a major overhaul of the football culture. And although I know times have changed, we have a history of fielding great football teams when we have a passionate athletic director at the helm who hires a great coach.

I love UCLA football, and I love this team. But we will not achieve more until the program’s leadership and accountability change.

BruinMed

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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