LOS ANGELES – Well, UCLA football is making headlines.
The Bruins’ name on everyone’s lips.
Folks in Westwood might wish it weren’t so, but the fact is that UCLA has college football abuzz, got everyone poking fun and pointing fingers and piling on. Playing the who’s-to-blame game. Though maybe the easier question for the pitchfork-yielding crowd: Who isn’t?
On whom do you want to pin the Bruins’ predicament?
You’ve got a grab bag of options for who deserves the heat for the 11-years-and-counting it’s been since UCLA had a 10-win season. For the fact that the Bruins are averaging less than half-capacity at the 90,000-seat Rose Bowl. For the fact they’re sitting at 0-3 this season after losses to Utah, UNLV and an especially ghastly one last week to New Mexico that cost DeShaun Foster his first head coaching job just 15 games in.
Throw a dart and see if it lands on Gene Block, the chancellor from 2007-24. Or Dan Guerrero, the athletic director from 2002-20. Or Martin Jarmond, UCLA’s sixth-year athletic director who complicated the Bruin’ lives by moving them across the country into the Big Ten. Or Foster. Or Chip Kelly, who preceded him on the sideline.
Or blame it on the Bruins’ traditional focus on basketball. Or on the fact that the Rose Bowl is 27 trafficky miles from UCLA’s campus. Or the 49-45 national-title-hopes-dashing loss to Miami all the way back in 1998 – or on the behind-the-scenes dissension back then over players’ plans for a political protest, as Yahoo Sports detailed in its dissection of the apparent carcass.
“What’s wrong with UCLA?” asked that Yahoo article in its headline over a story that dove into history that predated UCLA’s decision to fire Foster on Sept. 17, “igniting yet another coaching search at a school that wins big in nearly every sport except the one most critical to an athletic department’s financial health.”
The Athletic posed a question too with its headline: “UCLA football imploded in 3 weeks, but the Bruins’ problems go way back. How do they fix it?” The fix identified: Look to Julio Frenk for an overhaul. UCLA’s chancellor took over this year after a decade at the University of Miami, “where he oversaw an enormous shift in the Canes football program that included hiring Mario Cristobal.”
Sure, but if you listen to professional sports yapper like Colin Cowherd, no coach like Cristobal should want to venture westward to Westwood: “I don’t think it’s a good job,” Cowherd said on his podcast. Deficiencies in NIL hurt talent acquisition and retention too much, he said.
Also: Traffic stinks! “Your coaches have to drive 45 minutes or an hour to work,” Cowherd said.
If you consider traffic a tradeoff for the wonderful weather and culture we have here, it’s easy to get used to.
The NIL situation is trickier to traverse.
The Bruins’ new Search Committee for Head Football Coach needs to find a leader who’ll win and win fast and do it in a way that inspires donors to contribute to the program’s NIL fund.
But how can they land a qualified coach if he doesn’t think there’s sufficient NIL money available to win in the first place? Chickens and eggs, past decisions coming home to roost.
And this season, just three games old, feels lost already. Like it’s being held together by just duct tape and bubble gum and interim coach Tim Skipper’s full-chested enthusiasm.
Skipper treated last week – a bye week – and this one as training camp, he said. He was hoping for a “Men-In-Black” reset before what’s become a pivotal game against 1-2 Northwestern, a team that UCLA is supposed to beat – just like it was supposed to beat UNLV and New Mexico.
But with the Big Ten gauntlet awaiting, it appears it could be just the Wildcats on Saturday and Maryland on Oct. 18 that stand between the Bruins and an 0-12 season.
So Skipper has gotten back to basics, preaching about playing hard to a bunch of college athletes, including some who are making good money to play their roles.
“If I was to say one thing, I would say effort,” Skipper said this week. “I want to see guys who are giving their all just get to the ball, or giving their all to go score a touchdown, giving their all to run through contact, giving their all to wrap up and run your feet when you’re tackling, just give your all – I want the top, max effort you can play, every single play.
“And those are the guys who are gonna play.”
And those who don’t? How many of them will decide they don’t want to stand by and keep getting whacked like a piñata? How many pick up a redshirt year and transfer into the wind?
Who knows, Skipper said. Who cares?
“I honestly don’t even think about it,” he said. “We’re going to keep coaching them, loving them up, this is a great place, beautiful day, great campus, all that good stuff, If [they] don’t want it, they’re going to go somewhere else. If you do, and enjoy the coaching and want to get better every day … you stay here and keep working, that’s the bottom line.”
What else is there? Sometimes you hit traffic and there’s nothing to do but keep inching along toward where it is you’re trying to go.
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