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Poll Gives UCLA's Coach Karl Dorrell Dismal Approval Rating

PLEASE join us in emailing this article to lonnie.white@latimes.com, brian.dohn@dailynews.com, rkuwada@ocregister.com, kpearson@pe.com, ivan.maisel@espn3.com, and bruce.feldman@espn3.com. Again, please email this post to all of these reporters and then use the tool below to email it to everyone you know who cares about UCLA football. We need to do everything we can to get the traditional media to look into the story of Karl Dorrell being on the hot seat in Westwood. GO BRUINS.

AN ASTOUNDING 8 out of 10 UCLA football fans disapprove of the way UCLA head football coach Karl Dorrell is doing his job, according to an online opinion poll released this week ahead of UCLA's crucial and historic out of conference game against powerhouse Notre Dame.

The poll, conducted by Bruins Nation, an unofficial blog (a daily web journal) run by a group of UCLA alums focused on UCLA athletics, further found that an astonishing 81 percent of respondents disapproved of how Karl Dorrell was handling his job as the leader of the once proud football program. Over 51 percent of respondents strongly disapproved of Coach Dorrell's performance as the head coach of UCLA football. (LINK)

"I can deal with a loss here and there, but when you don't even try to win the game then it's just spitting in the face of loyal fans," said a Bruin football fan who is traveling to South Bend for UCLA's game against Notre Dame. "I simply cannot believe that any fan who has actually watched the football team play a game in the last year and a half could still want Dorrell as the head coach," said another.

Karl Dorrell's overall approval rating hit a high of 50 percent in January of 2005, buoyed by his team's 10 win season in 2005, which ended with a come from behind win against Northwestern in the Sun Bowl, but has steadily evaporated due to his team's chronic underachieving and uninspiring efforts against lower ranked teams, and failure to beat Southern California and ranked teams on the road.

After more than three years in Westwood, Coach Karl Dorrell is 0-8 against teams with winning records on the road, 0-3 against arch rival Southern California, including a 19-66 blow out loss to the Trojans at the Coliseum, one of the most lopsided losses in the history of UCLA football.

Karl Dorrell now has the same winning percentage as his predecessor Bob Toledo, who was fired for constant underachievements and failure to beat arch rival Southern California.  Karl Dorrell's record at UCLA is 26-17 for a winning percentage of .605, similar to Bob Toledo, who had a winning percentage of .605 with a record of 49-32. Dorrell has a 16-12 record in the Pac-10 conference, a .571 winning percentage, which is identical to Bob Toledo's .571 winning percentage from 1996 to 2002. Toledo's record in the Pac-10 conference was 32-24.

The Bruins Nation online survey was conducted between October 20 and 25 and received responses from more than 250 voters.

Bruins Nation is one of the largest team-oriented college sports-related blogs and one of the flagship college sites for SportsBlogs Nation. The site has had more than half a million visitors and averages more than 50,000 page views a week.

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