UCLA Football: Winning a Key Recruiting Battle over 7-Win Steve - Keeping Adrian Klemm

Jeremy Crabtree at ESPN.com has a solid piece on UCLA's ace recruiter Adrian Klemm. The article profiles the recruiting battle for offensive line coach Adrian Klemm, which took place after Seven Win Steve took the job at $C. Just more proof that Coach Mora is leaving no stone unturned in the ongoing push for January football.

Adrian Klemm opened up to ESPN about his coaching career, goals and recruiting philosophy in a new article. He's been so successful that the money bags in South Central tried to steal him:

"It was a difficult decision," said Klemm, who is now also UCLA's associate head coach and earned a raise to $650,000 annually. "I'm not going to lie. It wasn't that I wanted to leave here or anything like that, but they made an offer that was very generous in a lot of ways, whether it was titles or a monetary offer. When it came down to it, I just didn't feel like it was the right time.

This is what happens when you have a proactive coach, who beats back the opposition whenever and wherever the opposition may turn up. Whack-a-mole is always more fun when the Trogans are on the receiving end.

Understandably, Klemm wants to be a head coach:

"I would like be recognized, not so much with awards or different things, but I would like people to recognize that I take just as much, if not more, pride in my ability to coach," Klemm said. "This is something I do battle with, because I do want to be a head coach sometime in the near future."

Mora believes Klemm will get that opportunity sooner rather than later.

"Adrian has a reputation of being a great recruiter, and I think that overshadows what a great coach he is," Mora said. "He's going to make an outstanding head coach. I don't think Adrian is going to have to go be a coordinator to be a head coach, because I think his background as a player in the NFL and the people he's been able to be around, the Belichicks and the people like that, makes him extremely inviting for people. The guy's something."

From the beginning, Klemm cobbled together a workable line from Neuheisel regime holdovers and his own freshmen, and he held it all together despite a mountain of injuries in his second year.

He's done so much already, but alas, we can't hold on to him forever.

Go Bruins !!