Judging from the papers this morning it seems like Larry "You Are Killing Me" Kerr is already setting up his excuses, in case the defense doesn't get its act together fast, and implodes down the stretch. Kerr is whining that he is hamstrung because his DL is too young and yeah ... it's Bob Toledo ... who left him with no depth at DL. Here is Dohn:
"If there was one glaring weakness on this football team, it was depth at defensive line," said Kerr, in his third season at UCLA. "You came in here and were salivating over the five seniors you had (in 2003), but then you look behind them and name me one guy on this roster right now that had any experience behind those guys."
This is line of excuse from Kerr is freaking hilarious, considering it was his head coach and his DL coach, who were crowing about what this DL was going to do in 2005. Remember this article from the Press Enterprise, exactly 3 months ago (emphasis mine):
The primary reason for the struggles was inexperience, but this season's quartet of starters -- Brown, Justin Hickman, Brigham Harwell and Kyle Morgan -- combined for 34 starts a year ago, including 12 by Brown.
"Our defensive line will be a strength on our team more so than the perspective of what it was last fall," UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said. "We played with so many young guys, those guys have grown through that experience of playing."
The line has a new coach in Thurmond Moore, who replaces Don Johnson, now coaching with the NFL's Chicago Bears. Moore is known as a pass-rushing specialist and the line's speed fits that style of play. How he molds the unit into a run-stopping group will be the deciding factor of how UCLA's defense holds up this season.
LOL LOL So let me get this straight - Toledo's poor recruiting at DL and a lack of depth result of it, was not a big concern three months ago, but all on a sudden it is convenient excuse now that it is becoming apparent Kerr has no freaking clue how to adjust his defense schemes and most importantly motivate this defense. And furthermore, if the depth at DL was such a huge issue when Toledo left, then why in the world this coaching staff didn't bring in able bodies at DL during last three years? And most importantly - if the DL recruiting was so horrible under Toledo then why in the world Karl Dorrell retained Don Johnson, Toledo's DL coach on his staff for two more years? I mean after all if Toledo's staff was incompetent in feeling the gaps at DL, then presumably that was on Don Johnson, then why did Dorrell and Kerr decide to retain him in the staff for two more years?"Our defensive line will be a strength on our team more so than the perspective of what it was last fall," UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said. "We played with so many young guys, those guys have grown through that experience of playing."
The line has a new coach in Thurmond Moore, who replaces Don Johnson, now coaching with the NFL's Chicago Bears. Moore is known as a pass-rushing specialist and the line's speed fits that style of play. How he molds the unit into a run-stopping group will be the deciding factor of how UCLA's defense holds up this season.
What the h*ll have they been doing during last three years to result in this sorry ass defense that looks like it cannot tackle if they were matched up against high school kids from good Orange County schools? What has the new DL coach been doing? Will any of these clowns take any kind of responsibility whatsoever instead of constantly passing the buck and blaming the previous regime? Note in contrast in the basketball program, which was truly decimated by Lavin's negligent coaching and recruiting, Howland and his crew just went out and put together building depth by bringing in two back to back top10 recruiting classes, instead of looking for excuses and blaming the previous staff (when they could have done so easily). The fact that Kerr and his crew are already making these litany of predictable excuses of injuries, of being young (as if other programs are playing with 25-30 year old kids), and of being hampered by the previous staff's recruiting, just shows how insecure these guys are of their abilities to turn around this program. Again, excuse this rant - I am not asking Dorrell should be fired today. No one is making the argument on this blog. So please Dorrell lovers save your standard defensive "hater" burbs. All I want to point out how disingenuous and insincere this coaching staff in the defensive side is being right now, who instead of taking full responsibility for a disastrous defensive unit, are making pathetic excuses, conveniently passing the buck. Something which got their previous head coach of UCLA football fired. Bruins Nation is tired of excuses for the constant underachievement of this football program since 1998. This year is not over. So let's hope they can get this right and finish with respectability according to the standards of Spencer Havner. Before that we just don't want to hear any stupid excuses coming out of Spalding Field. We are just not in the mood to hear any more excuses.