One wonders if Dan Guerrero ever pauses to consider his own legacy.
For so many reasons, now is the time to make a move, including the fact that the current recruiting class is small (meaning that a new coach need not come in trying to fill a big class on the fly), next year will be an experienced team and next year's schedule is favorable.
A new coach can hit the ground running.
Failure to move now leads to BruinBlue's nightmare scenario: Dorrell rebounds from a disastrous 2006 with a "good" 2007 -- translation: 8 or 9 wins -- and saves his job for another two years or more.
And we can run on that treadmill forever.
There's almost do doubt what former AD Pete Dalis would do: nothing. He'd hold out hope, he'd wait it out. He allowed Steve Lavin to leverage a key win here and there into yet another season and it took Dalis' retirement and the worst season in nearly three score years to give Dan G. the chance to bring in Ben Howland.
Guerrero now has a chance to prove he's different than Dalis. He can prove he's the type of manager who refuses to compound his own errors through inaction.
It's even possible to make the move and save face, even salvage some of Dorrell's reputation. One could imagine crediting Dorrell with solving the internal problems created by his predecessor ... the whole "underbelly" thing. The team is in good academic shape. The conditioning program is supposedly going well. Recruiting ties have been re-established to many local high school football powers.
It would be mostly spin, but one could try and paint the picture that Karl Dorrell was charged both with improving many of the team's behind-the-scenes issues and the play on the field. One could contend that he accomplished half his mission, but that it was time for someone else to take over and accomplish the other, on field, part of the challenge. One could praise Dorrell for being a "successful bridge" to the new era.
Yes, it would be spin, but it could be done.