It is Tuesday, yet the Notre Dame loss is still reverberating across the nation. The best thing about this loss it has made crystal clear at a national level what we have been trying to feverishly argue for last 2+ years: Dorrell is an incompetent clown.
Garry Parrish from Sportsline.com was at the game. He now knows about "the Karl Dorrell factor," something our Fox71 coined months ago on BN:
My rationale for watching two unranked teams was that Notre Dame football is so legendary that the Irish being winless is just as big a story as if they were undefeated. In many ways, I suggested, the Irish remained intriguing for the same reasons millions of people tuned in to see Britney Spears on the MTV Video Music Awards. Watching an entity that was once on top of the world (like Notre Dame and Spears) famously struggle (like Notre Dame and Spears) is something normal people enjoy and can't help but to monitor.
My bottom line: Notre Dame is Britney Spears.
"Yeah," said the Tuscaloosa News' Cecil Hurt. "But I bet Britney scores more."
Rimshot!
(Badump-bump)
And so it was with that train-wreck appeal that I found myself at the Rose Bowl Saturday, on the second level of the press box, window open, cool California breeze in my face. The plan was to watch Notre Dame lose again, write about it, throw in a Kevin Federline reference somewhere and call it a night. But in my infinite wisdom I somehow underestimated the Karl Dorrell factor, and boy did that come back to bite me in the you-know-what.
"There is some joy in that locker room," Charlie Weis said following Notre Dame's 20-6 victory over UCLA that pushed the Irish to 1-5. "It's been a long time since they've been able to sing the fight song."
So in that regard, it was a huge win for the Irish. But I wouldn't get too excited because in the end it was just a victory over an underachieving UCLA team coached by an always scrutinized Dorrell, otherwise known as Public Enemy No. 1 for UCLA football fans, the object of so much vitriol that it's difficult to imagine him surviving this debacle and living to see 2008.
Sure, he's 4-2 this season, and on the surface that might look OK. But the four wins are unimpressive and the two losses are embarrassing, and if the mood on this night was any indication, folks out here are tired of being the local punch line ... particularly when it didn't have to be this way.
Parish is not the only national columnist clowning the Fixer of Westwood. Neil Hayes from the Chicago Times has an analysis of the game, which reads like a post on Bruins Nation:
My bottom line: Notre Dame is Britney Spears.
"Yeah," said the Tuscaloosa News' Cecil Hurt. "But I bet Britney scores more."
Rimshot!
(Badump-bump)
And so it was with that train-wreck appeal that I found myself at the Rose Bowl Saturday, on the second level of the press box, window open, cool California breeze in my face. The plan was to watch Notre Dame lose again, write about it, throw in a Kevin Federline reference somewhere and call it a night. But in my infinite wisdom I somehow underestimated the Karl Dorrell factor, and boy did that come back to bite me in the you-know-what.
"There is some joy in that locker room," Charlie Weis said following Notre Dame's 20-6 victory over UCLA that pushed the Irish to 1-5. "It's been a long time since they've been able to sing the fight song."
So in that regard, it was a huge win for the Irish. But I wouldn't get too excited because in the end it was just a victory over an underachieving UCLA team coached by an always scrutinized Dorrell, otherwise known as Public Enemy No. 1 for UCLA football fans, the object of so much vitriol that it's difficult to imagine him surviving this debacle and living to see 2008.
Sure, he's 4-2 this season, and on the surface that might look OK. But the four wins are unimpressive and the two losses are embarrassing, and if the mood on this night was any indication, folks out here are tired of being the local punch line ... particularly when it didn't have to be this way.
UCLA coach Karl Dorrell mismanaged this game, pure and simple, and the Irish were the benefactors. The Bruins' second loss likely will be a major factor in Dorrell losing his job when the season is over. That's how obvious his blunders were.
Notre Dame fans who packed both end zones and celebrated the Irish's first win might not want to admit it, but UCLA lost this game more than Notre Dame won it.
The game turned late in the first quarter when Bruins quarterback Ben Olson left with a sprained knee. Because backup Patrick Cowan also was out with a knee injury, it would be convenient to say that Dorrell had no option but to turn to walk-on McLeod Bethel-Thompson.
Except it wasn't true. Dorrell did have an option, he just chose to ignore it.
Osaar Rasshan is an athletic quarterback whom Dorrell moved to wide receiver earlier this season. Instead of moving Rasshan back to quarterback -- knowing that he was one play away from using Bethel-Thompson, who never had thrown a pass in a college game -- Dorrell stuck with his original plan.
It cost him the game, and it might have cost him his job.
Yet despite this backdrop Dorrell and his program continue to drown in delusion talking about winning the Pac-10 championship, while not having any clue how to deal with the mess at quarterback. I mean Dorrell even by his standards sounds appallingly clueless wrt to Olson:
Notre Dame fans who packed both end zones and celebrated the Irish's first win might not want to admit it, but UCLA lost this game more than Notre Dame won it.
The game turned late in the first quarter when Bruins quarterback Ben Olson left with a sprained knee. Because backup Patrick Cowan also was out with a knee injury, it would be convenient to say that Dorrell had no option but to turn to walk-on McLeod Bethel-Thompson.
Except it wasn't true. Dorrell did have an option, he just chose to ignore it.
Osaar Rasshan is an athletic quarterback whom Dorrell moved to wide receiver earlier this season. Instead of moving Rasshan back to quarterback -- knowing that he was one play away from using Bethel-Thompson, who never had thrown a pass in a college game -- Dorrell stuck with his original plan.
It cost him the game, and it might have cost him his job.
The surgery is to check on a possible tear of meniscus cartilage in the knee. Bruins coach Karl Dorrell said Sunday that Olson was experiencing pain in the knee.
"He does have some pain in the joint," Dorrell said. "We're trying to figure out what that issue is, and what the potential of that issue is."
No wonder the school is trying to keep him away from interviews by explaining that "he could not be located.""He does have some pain in the joint," Dorrell said. "We're trying to figure out what that issue is, and what the potential of that issue is."
We could only hope they told him to go away for good so that none of us had to worry about locating this clown when discussing UCLA football ever again.
It’d be nice if we could all get rid of the "Dorrell Factor" sooner rather than later.
GO BRUINS.