In my recent post entitled “Could Jim Mora Jr. be the answer for the UCLA Bruins,” I addressed the high probability of AD Dan Guerrero luring the former Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks head coach to Westwood. Further, I felt it was an immediate upgrade from recently fired Rick Neuheisel, but I may have been off on that one. I realized I was speaking impulsively with distaste for how “Chianti Dan” handled the Neuheisel mess all season. At first I thought bringing in Mora Jr. would be a good fix for UCLA, but after deeper thought I was wrong.
Junior knows the X’s and O’s, but he’s never been able to effectively manage
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the game. There’s no telling if Mora Jr. has the ability to bring in great assistants to fix that problem and I’m not convinced he’ll steal any recruits from crosstown rival USC, but he can’t be worse than Neuheisel, right? I’m now starting to think the Dan Guerrero may be the biggest problem UCLA needs to handle if they ever want to be relevant in the Pac-12 again.
Since arriving to Westwood in 2002, Guerrero is responsible for firing Bob Toledo, hiring Karl Dorrell, firing Dorrell, hiring Rick Neuheisel and now firing Neuheisel. He doesn’t seem to have a keen eye for someone who can build a program. It’s been nearly a decade and he’s struck out that many times and still has a job? He would have gotten canned a long time ago if an AD performed that way at any other “prestigious” program.
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Dan Guerrero has had months to find a suitable replacement for Neuheisel. Everybody knew, including Guerrero (see ESPN interview) that there was going to be a new Bruins head coach next season, yet he’s done nothing about it. Their coaching search has been a joke at best. I feel horrible for UCLA alum and the fan base about the fact they have an arrogant, laid back clown pretending to make efforts at building a winning football program. He even let BeyondUSports’ very own Mike Leach recruit UCLA assistant coach Jim Mastro to become his assistant at Washington State yesterday.
Mora Jr. isn’t really a guy that knows how to win. Look at his past records in the NFL. It’s like reading an eye chart at the optometrist’s office: 11-5, 8-8, 7-9, 5-11, 5-11. That’s one winning season during his coaching career. Mora hasn’t had anything to do with college football in 27 years and that was as a graduate assistant at his Alma mater Washington. Why does Guerrero think Mora Jr. is the answer all of a sudden? Even if he plans to keep Mora on a short leash, he’ll probably have to pay him upwards of $1.5 to $2 million and this guy knows nothing about innovating clever schemes in college football.
UCLA has no idea what it’s doing and it’s becoming abundantly clear they have no real plan for the future. Hiring Mora will end the same way it has for the last several coaches, crash and burn. He’s just a bandage to the overall problem- the athletic director.
Raju Kansagra
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