Looks like overwhelming outpouring of disapproval of Chianti Dan's pursuit of Kevin Sumlin has already had an impact. Peter Yoon from ESPNLA just tweeted a little while ago:
There is no doubt Chianti Dan is feeling the heat from all over the Bruin Nation. As mentioned in the last post over 70 percent of BruinsNation - overwhelmingly made up of UCLA alums spanning decades - spoke up against Chianti Dan's quest to woo Sumlin. In addition we have heard that high impact boosters (supporters who donate millions to UCLA Athletics) strongly voiced their reservations against the hiring of Sumlin. Yet Chianti Dan decided it'd be a good idea to fly out to Houston to gauge Sumlin's interests despite all the red flags we have been raising in recent days.
Perhaps Sumlin will become a good coach some day. But right now the datapoints against him are troubling and the Bruins cannot take a chance by hiring someone who doesn't have the track record of building his own program. Speaking of not taking a chance, it is also about time Chancellor Gene Block takes the hiring process out of Chianti Dan's control and have it conducted by folks who actually know something about the game. From what we have seen to date Chianti Dan has no idea about the landscape of college football, neither can he execute basic steps of management 101.
We will update this post as we get more info. It is time for Gene Block to appoint individuals in search of the hiring process who actually know something about this game and are also not associated with previous failed regimes (cough***Bob Field***) at UCLA. This is getting absurd.
UPDATE (N): Couple of additional thoughts here. How amateur it was for Chianti Dan to fly out to Houston to have "preliminary" discussions with Sumlin, when Texas A&M had all but closed on Sumlin. Whoever is driving the money bus in UCLA athletics, needs to make it clear to Dan that at this point they are also not going to be happy with hires like Mike Bellotti who has been out of the game for years or someone like June Jones, who has bounced around way too long (and fired from previous jobs). Chianti Dan may try to take the easy way out and hire on of these guys and hype them, but there should be no settling from Bruin Nation. We have settled for 15+ years and have ended up with the current rubble of a football program (from the standpoint of management and identity issues in the national level). Time for UCLA to get this right despite the cluelessness of Chianti Dan. GO BRUINS.
GO BRUINS.