As noted by Quickhands, the guys over at CoachesHotSeatblog (who throughout this season piled up pretty good record on astute observations re the coaching scene in college football) have come out and blasted the ongoing UCLA coaching search process to date as a `great disappointment':
UCLA - This has been another coaching search full of leaks. Next thing I am going to read in the LA papers is that Dan Guerrero has gone to the bathroom and on his way back to his office he took a call from another coach that wanted to talk about the UCLA job. Are these LA reporters camped out in Guerrero's office, or is there someone at UCLA who calls up these reporters every time someone makes a move on the coaching search front? Why the people at UCLA feel the need to broadcast their every move is beyond us, but these are also the people that immediately eliminated from consideration the one and only guy that wants the job that also fits everything that Guerrero wants in a new head football coach. That coach is Texas Tech's Mike Leach. We are not quite sure why Leach was removed from consideration so quickly, it could have been pressure from the Pac-10 office who hate Leach's honesty, or it could have been that Guerrero doesn't want a head football coach that will actually stand up and tell you what he is thinking. As for the candidates that have been mentioned by the LA papers, DeWayne Walker, Norm Chow, and Rick Neuheisal, we cannot help but say, WHAT? None of these guys remotely fit the parameters that Dan Guerrero outlined in the press conference after the firing of Karl Dorrell, and as for what the Champions across town at Heritage Hall think of the above 3 men.....Wait, the USC people are laughing hysterically as they imagine facing off with any of these guys in the coming years. UCLA should be hiring a proven head coach that has won on the Division I-A level, and if they hire one of these other guys and it doesn't work out, Dan Guerrero is going to find that no matter how many championships you pile up in other sports, no one gets a 3rd chance to hire a football coach. We will be watching with great interest the rest of this UCLA coaching search, because up to this point it has been a great disappointment.
Meanwhile, the folks over DumpDorrell.com have laid out DG's missteps in these early weeks:
Not having the search firm ready to go was the first misstep. Not a huge misstep, and one that was easy fixed, but one that makes you scratch your head. The second misstep was making it known that he was very interested in Chris Peterson when everyone knew, because Peterson was very vocal, that he didn't want the job. There was never any direct public quote from DG so he could be given a pass.
The third misstep was interviewing John Harbaugh. This is the move that absolutely makes no sense. Why interview another no-name position coach when you just fired one?? No one knew Jim Harbaugh had a brother before DG interviewed John. Now John is being considered to replace the mistake Dorrell?? We don't get that. We want to believe in Guerrero, we do. But if this goes sour, there are already some questionable moves to point to.
Nevertheless, let's review what we know. The only confirmed interviews have been with Rick Neuheisel, Norm Chow, DeWayne Walker, and John Harbaugh. That is not a great list for an AD who says at a big presser that the prerequisite for a new coach is successful head coaching experience. Of that list obviously we only have 1 such candidate, Neuheisel. If this is the list DG is taking to Chancellor Block this week, then DG will come under fire ... unless he picks Neuheisel (and even then DG will still look amateurish). Dan Guerrero is painting himself into a corner here. We don't get it. If this is the hire that will shape his career, as DG himself apparently said, then something is missing.
We hope that something is shrouded in secrecy. We know that there are other names. We know that DG is on planes, trains and automobiles ... we like that move. That is a great way to keep the beat press in the dark. So as we move into the week that DG sends his final list to Chancellor Block for review, we want to believe that DG is doing this right. He really has only one shot ... it's that big.
I am still going to hold my breath and wait to see who we get as our next coach. After all it was just week, Michigan's coaching search was looking like a complete joke, until they hit (what appears to be a) home run this weekend. The third misstep was interviewing John Harbaugh. This is the move that absolutely makes no sense. Why interview another no-name position coach when you just fired one?? No one knew Jim Harbaugh had a brother before DG interviewed John. Now John is being considered to replace the mistake Dorrell?? We don't get that. We want to believe in Guerrero, we do. But if this goes sour, there are already some questionable moves to point to.
Nevertheless, let's review what we know. The only confirmed interviews have been with Rick Neuheisel, Norm Chow, DeWayne Walker, and John Harbaugh. That is not a great list for an AD who says at a big presser that the prerequisite for a new coach is successful head coaching experience. Of that list obviously we only have 1 such candidate, Neuheisel. If this is the list DG is taking to Chancellor Block this week, then DG will come under fire ... unless he picks Neuheisel (and even then DG will still look amateurish). Dan Guerrero is painting himself into a corner here. We don't get it. If this is the hire that will shape his career, as DG himself apparently said, then something is missing.
We hope that something is shrouded in secrecy. We know that there are other names. We know that DG is on planes, trains and automobiles ... we like that move. That is a great way to keep the beat press in the dark. So as we move into the week that DG sends his final list to Chancellor Block for review, we want to believe that DG is doing this right. He really has only one shot ... it's that big.
But for rest of us - alums and students - we are not going to sit down and just accept another horse-sh!t search process if it ends up with selection of CHOKER or the despicable, shameless hack like DeWayne Walker. If DG goes that route it will be an all out war against Morgan Center from hereon out. We are going to stay on them from the very first day, like we stayed on Karl Dorrell. We are going to lay down our markers for next years. And we are going to scrutinize their every move, every word the very moment they take over as the next "experiment" at UCLA.
Lastly, we will call out Dan Guerrero as big fat, lying scumbag, if he ends up shoveling the crap of Walker or CHOKER at the end of this coaching "search." We will do what we can to demand from Chancellor Block that he doesn't get a 3rd chance to atone for yet another mistake with our football program.
GO BRUINS.
UPDATE: Dienhart's source was apparently talking about John not Jim. So the search in the public sphere remains a total joke, sham, kabuki theater, whatever you want to call it. GO BRUINS. -N