Total Unity In The Bruin Blogosphere

I know UCLA is 4-2, and to the uninformed fan, that looks good. But none of the wins are against good teams (and UCLA played horrible in all of them). Both of the losses were horrendous, embarrassing losses that made UCLA football a laughingstock. (Read my thoughts on the Utah debacle here).

If UCLA's not the worst 4-2 team in the country, I don't know who is. What's scary is the tough games on the schedule are still remaining (Cal, Oregon, Arizona State, USC).

Notre Dame is now 1-5. While most of the country has been laughing at them for being a laughingstock, they will now laugh at UCLA for losing to Notre Dame.

Pathetic.

If this post sounded incoherent, it's because these embarrassing losses still hurt, even when you get used to them and expect them to happen.

I am frankly amazed we were even able to defeat Stanford 45-17 to open the season. We look that pathetic. We have gotten worse EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. We are a team without an offensive identity, led by a coach who supposedly is an offensive 'genius'.

I am sick and tired of hearing about how we're going to 'learn from this loss'. It's readily apparent, five years into this experiment, that we have learned absolutely jack shit.

Karl Dorrell may be the dumbest person on the face of the earth. What kind of idiot takes a freshman, walk-on QB and 1) makes him go with an empty backfield on 4th and 1, and 2) makes him throw for a first down on 3rd and 6 from his own five yard line against a team that is pretty pathetic, and could not move the ball on offense? He should have been fired right after that play.

I guess that is my silver lining tonight: our defeat won't be the lead story on Sports Center. Yes, that is sad and pathetic, but I don't care. It is about the only thing I have left as a fan at this point. If the Bruins aren't going to win, well dammit, the Trojans better lose. So thank you Stanford, you at least made tonight somewhat tolerable. Now, I'm going to go finish the rest of my beers and dream of regime change in the off season.

Perhaps the most telling sign of the current state of affairs was the fan response in the early stages of the game when everyone still thought that the Bruins would win. There were a number of Irish fans sitting in my section (and in every other section) and despite their team’s 0-5 debacle of a season to that point and poor execution on the field, they still conveyed optimism and enthusiasm because they’re excited about the direction that Charlie Weis has the program headed in the right direction. Contrast that to the Bruin fans, who were groaning after every bad play, expecting something bad to happen because that’s what seems to happen to this team under Dorrell, despite a seemingly lofty 4-1 record. There is no confidence in the direction of the program, only the expectation that things are going to get worse. How can this be allowed to continue?

Now the big question is whether the athletic department, which supposedly loves Karl, has the stones to pull the trigger (and if you want to encourage them, AD Dan Guerrero’s email is dguerrero@athletics.ucla.edu). It may cost them this stellar recruiting class that Dorrell is bringing in, and it will cost a lot of money to buyout some contracts. But you know what, if someone doesn’t know how to drive a car, it’s not going to matter whether he has a Ferrari or he has a Kia. The car is still not going to go anywhere. It’s time to find someone that’s got his drivers license, even if his car his only a Camry.

Without a doubt, the big winners this weekend were UCLA football fans. Sure, right now they might be filled with anger and shame, but that embarrassing, pathetic loss to Notre Dame was actually a blessing for their program. That defeat combined with USC's loss erased any possibility that Karl Dorrell could save his job beyond this season. With Dorrell, the program was destined for perpetual mediocrity. At least now, there's hope for the future. Message to Chris Peterson: I'm sure you're happy at Boise State, but UCLA isn't a bad place to be either. Ok, the Rose Bowl doesn't come with blue turf, but on the plus side, the campus is just a few miles down Sunset from the Church of Scientology headquarters. Think about it. What would Xenu do???

It would be a convenient excuse for Karl Dorrell to highlight the fact that he was playing the majority of the Notre Dame game with his 3rd string QB, a walk-on freshman with little experience (or discernible talent). Unfortunately for Captain Karl, Stanford managed to beat #2 USC in the LA Coliseum with a sophomore QB, Tavita Pritchard. Pritchard had only thrown three collegiate passes entering the game, and yet Jim Harbaugh was able to coach him up to the extent that he pulled off the greatest upset in college football history (at least in terms of point spreads). For any UCLA fans reading this blog, "coaching" is a term used in sports to describe the development of skills under the tutelage of a team leader or coach. I know it's been a foreign concept around this time of year in Westwood, but believe it or not, other programs actually perform this miracle with regularity.