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According to a report from Bruin Report Online, UCLA Football Coach Jim Mora appears to be close to filling the remaining open positions on his coaching staff for 2017. It looks like DeShaun Foster, who played football at UCLA from 1998 to 2001 and who served as a graduate assistant coach under Kennedy Polamalu for three years, will be returning home to Westwood to coach the running backs.
It looks like the vacancy created by the firing of Adrian Klemm will be filled by Hank Fraley. Fraley played 11 seasons in the NFL for the Eagles, Browns and Rams.
After being cut by the Rams in 2011, Fraley was hired to coach the offensive line for the University of San Diego under former Bruin Ron Caragher. The results weren’t very good.
For the 2011 season and prior to Fraley’s hiring, USD was ranked 52nd in the FCS in rushing with an average of 157.82 yards per game and they were ranked 19th in sacks allowed averaging 1.18 sacks per game. In 2012 after Fraley was hired, USD dropped to 73rd in rushing with an average of 138.64 yards per game and they dropped to 85th in sacks allowed averaging 2.55 sacks per game. In other words, they were less successful running the football and their sack count more than doubled. That’s not exactly the prescription UCLA Football needs.
In 2013, Fraley followed Caragher from San Diego to San Jose State. The results were somewhat better there.
SJSU averaged 113.46 yards per game which ranked them 106th in the FBS in rushing before Fraley got there and the Spartans were tied for 66th in sacks allowed with an average of 2.00 sacks per game.
The running game improved marginally once Caragher and Fraley got there. In 2013, the team averaged 137.3 yards per game and they did that by increasing an average rush by about a half yard per rushing attempt. They were still ranked 97th in the FBS in rushing as a team. As far as sacks go, SJSU improved a little there as well. The Spartans cut their sacks allowed with 1.75 sacks per game which tied them for 48th in the FBS.
Those aren’t exactly spectacular results, but they are an improvement over what Fraley did at USD.
After just one season at San Jose State, Fraley became the Assistant Offensive Line Coach with the Minnesota Vikings, meaning that you might consider him the infamous “player to be named later” completing a “trade” which sent Kennedy Polamalu to the Vikes. Fraley spent the last three seasons in Minnesota under Jeff Davidson first and then under Tony Sparano this past season.
In other news about the coaching staff, it looks like Marques Tuiasosopo will be headed to be the quarterbacks coach at Cal under new head coach Justin Wilcox. Tui previously coached with Wilcox at Washington under Steve Sarkisian. His departure makes sense considering that new offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch will be taking over coaching quarterbacks.
Go Bruins.