Nestor, I have to start this by saying that I mean no disrespect by putting the team we play on Thanksgiving weekend in this subject line, but the fact is that, although I haven't seen it discussed here on BN or anywhere else, my feeling is that a no-longer-as-scary Southern Cal team makes this weekend's game against the Sun Devils a little more dangerous.

A couple weeks - and a couple Bruin victories - ago, still trying to stay optimistic after not being there to see UCLA win a game in 63 days (couldn't travel to Tennessee, and went to a wedding at the last minute rather than the Kansas State game), a friend and I looked at the remaining schedule and discussed how it was still possible to become bowl eligible, because Washington, Wazzu, and Arizona State were all beatable teams, if the fourth quarter in Corvallis proved not to be a fluke.  In order to not sound like we were being overly optimistic, we were indirectly ceding the biggest game of the year because Southern Cal, even after its two losses at that point, was perceived as so dominant that you couldn't realistically expect to come out of the Mausoleum with a win.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I was there in 2006, the guy with blue hair running around in the parking lot after the game lighting red-and-yellow pom-poms on fire with lighter fluid.  (I still don't know why their fans were letting me have them after I asked - maybe they were trying to jump off the bandwagon as quickly as they could?)  UCLA never lost to the team across town during my years in college.  I know instinctively that you don't write off this game under any circumstances.  But it sounded more reasonable to say we could win those next three games than to say that we could beat what was at the time still a top-10 ranked team.

If we were to start that conversation today, though, I have to think that the last game of the regular season doesn't look as daunting as it did a few weeks ago.  If Karl Dorrell and his staff could beat the Hated Ones in a year when they would go on to win the Rose Bowl, they look much less scary under the current regime, and with a UCLA team that's starting to show that it might be gelling.  I'm starting to hear, more and more, about how UCLA has a decent chance to end the season 7-5, and I'm finding it harder to convince myself to think only of the game this weekend.  Even if we don't win this weekend, after all, we can still fulfill Rick Neuheisel's promise to Dan Patrick.

Just a couple minutes ago, looking at the standings, I was reminded that we are playing a team that is 4-6 going into the game at the Rose Bowl.  We have to assume that Arizona State also wants to finish the season bowl-eligible.  Unfortunately for them, that means they can't lose any more games.  Suddenly, if UCLA sees Southern Cal as a beatable team, Arizona State goes into the weekend needing this game more than UCLA does.

A couple weeks ago, watching Dennis Erickson pace the sideline as an ASU player was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after a sack that would have forced the Trojans to punt (on a drive that led to a Trojans score, arguably losing the game for Arizona State with that one stupid celebratory moment), I recalled the anger I felt watching a Toledo-coached UCLA playing against a Dennis Erickson-coached Oregon State years ago.  The guy doesn't historically seem to bring out the strongest character traits in his players.  (This was before he went on to continue the destruction of "my" 49ers, cementing Erickson as one of my least-favorite coaches.)  Erickson and his players will be doing whatever they think they can to win.  And UCLA had better be ready for it.

So now I'm torn.  I want to be happy that the Trojan dynasty might be falling apart.  I want to be happy that Pete Carroll is in a place where he's pissy that teams are running up the score on him.  (OT - I want to see that halftime show; I've always been a fan of the Stanford band since they got into formation and spelled out "USC SUX" for us at homecoming and sent a contingent downtown in the middle of the week to play "Fight On" as OJ Simpson walked into the courtroom my second year at UCLA.)  I want to be happy that I can feel like the game on November 28 is winnable.

But I want to be there when we win on November 21, first.

A Facebook friend who I don't believe to be a member of the BruinsNation community posted this tonight after attending the New York alumni tour with Rick Neuheisel:

Who knew Coach Neuheisel was so funny?! Best line: "First year, USC didn't want any of our recruits. This year, we got six of theirs. And we could've gotten five or six more if they could actually read or write."

I wasn't there, so it's not perfectly sourced, but I definitely found it funny and thought it worth passing on to everyone here.  (I wasn't sure if this shouldn't be fanposted, instead, but couldn't figure out a way to do it without a link.)

UPDATE II: Bumped again in light of the hilarious story of Carroll now recommending the SDSU job for DeWayne Walker. Originally published on August of 2006, the bumped again after December 6, 2006. -N

UPDATE: Bumped. pimp put up this post back in August. He called it. -N

From the diaries. No surprise here. The physical genius is a typical classy Trojan. - N

Sorry to post another diary so soon after the other, but I just spotted this article from Brian Dohn in the Daily News:

When DeWayne Walker was contacted about turning around one of the worst defenses in college football, he received advice from many colleagues.

One was his former boss, USC coach Pete Carroll. And in describing UCLA's defense, Carroll apparently did not hold back.

According to sources outside of UCLA, Carroll's assessment of the Bruins' defense was brutal, if not brutally honest, as he told Walker the Bruins' defense was soft and needed an upgrade in talent before it could be fixed and advised Walker not to take the job.

Walker, who was a defensive backs coach with the Washington Redskins, accepted the challenge anyway, shunning a larger NFL paycheck to become UCLA's defensive coordinator.

Walker declined comment about what Carroll said, saying it was a private conversation. "I spoke with a lot of people, and I received positive and negative feedback," Walker said. "Ultimately, I decided it was something I wanted to do. I could have stayed in the NFL, but one of the reasons I came back to college was to work with a guy like coach (Karl) Dorrell."

I love this development.  As the article continues to say, "Several UCLA players said they were aware Carroll did not have pleasant things to say about them," which can only be a good thing come December 2 at the Rose Bowl.

Does anyone envision any coach in this situation not revealing the details of a conversation like that just before the big game to provide extra motivation?

What we have here is a coach who can tell his team that he took the job because he believed in them, and Dorrell's system, despite all the stuff he was hearing from everyone else.  An "us-against-the-world" mentality is exactly what this defense needs following last year's performance.

Plus, it makes Carroll look like an asshole, his old employee calling to ask for advice and then completely ignoring it to go work for the competition.  If the defense shows the improvement we're told it will, Carroll looks like an idiot for years to come, with every crisp tackle any of the players on this year's roster makes.

What was the quote? "We just have to beat those f***ers"?

... and it occurs to me that I'm in a small group of people who are home at this time of day, and in California, which enables mail sent from Los Angeles to arrive this soon.

For those of you at work, here on the West Coast, know that you're probably going to arrive at home to find your football season tickets in your mailbox.

It's funny how, every year, I know football season is coming, but it's not until I hold the tickets in my hand that it starts to feel real.

Bumped. Wanted to make sure more folks got to read this excellent take that went up over the long weekend. GO BRUINS. -N

Really quick update here: I just read more closely, and realized that there was a mistake in my initial post.  Nestor rightfully made this a small point, because it was inevitable, and I had missed it.  Sorry, N.

It's not mentioned in his daily Bruin Walk post, so I have to assume Nestor is already writing a dedicated post about today's news reported in the Daily News that Kevin Love is hiring an agent and it is therefore about to become official that he is leaving.

Don't get me wrong, I like Kevin Love a lot, but I can't really bring myself to be all that sad about this.

When the season ended and it just came down to the waiting game until he announced that he would put his name in the draft, my biggest concern was that the basketball team did not have a proven center next year.  Unless Drew Gordon proved to be a major phenom - and in the few minutes of his high school basketball career I had seen, consisting of him confronting an opposing player after a foul and the two receiving off-setting technical fouls, I wasn't optimistic about that - there was going to be a big void left in the middle, and it was going to require that UCLA play a significantly different type of game next year.  (I had faith that Ben Howland would adjust and that we would still be competitive, but the streak of Final Four caliber teams seemed to be in danger.)

The fact that the article I linked above isn't just about Kevin Love, but is a shared article about the fact that our next center has magically appeared out of thin air and we appear to have found an adequate replacement in J'Mison Morgan, means that I can say that I'm not worried about the center position anymore, and I've realized that this means that I can say good bye to Kevin Love without really feeling like UCLA is going to miss him.

The thing is, UCLA made the Final Four before Kevin Love was here, and we have as good a chance to make it again next year without him as any other team in the country, from what I can tell.  Really, then, there is no Kevin Love legacy to speak of.  He was an affable big man who came down from Oregon, spent a year waiting out his NBA-imposed delay for eligibility, spent some time talking to John Wooden and hanging out in Los Angeles, and now he's gone.  Yes, there are some happy memories of things he did in games, and it was an impressive year, but UCLA is no better or worse off now than it was before he announced that he would attend, as far as I can tell.

I have to say, I do have a couple of small bones of contention I could pick up, which occurred to me in the wake of the comments made by Kevin's dad on a sports radio show in the past week.  Thinking about "promises" that Ben Howland may or may not have made to a kid who ended up being an All-American and winning the Pac-10 POY award, I remember - even if I can't seem to be able to word a search query that will help me find the link for it - a mini-controversy earlier in the season when Howland seemed to be calling out Kevin Love for being out of shape.  Kevin seemed to be a little upset at the insinuation at the time.  Now, with the draft approaching, I have seen Kevin Love saying  he has dropped several pounds and is in the shape he needs to be in order to do some things that are going to surprise the NBA scouts when he's going through draft try-outs.  If his dad is going to say that Kevin Love wasn't able to showcase the talents he had, I think it's only fair to put it on the record that Kevin Love did not put himself in the position until it was too late for Howland to showcase some of those particular talents.  Kevin Love had a year to goof off and play some college basketball, it appears, and waited until that year was over to get serious about getting ready for the next level.  Given how phenomenal some of the things he did in Westwood were, I'm left with a regret that we didn't get to see Kevin Love's best effort, and wish that somehow in challenging Kevin to get into better shape, as he tried to do, Howland had been able to speed that process.

Before it seems like I'm complaining too much, I should say that I've defended Kevin Love's right to go to the NBA in several conversations with friends.  Kevin Love does not owe us anything because he put on the UCLA jersey and played for our team.  I had fun watching him play, and wish him all the best.

And perhaps the best thing in all of this is that there are other UCLA players who set an example that make them easier to love as UCLA fans than Kevin Love is.  Perhaps in another sport, it would be easy to say that Kevin Love had to go pro now, because the owners are trying to limit rookie salaries and it would  be a matter of losing millions of dollars if he had stayed in college for another year and worked to bring that championship he said that he wanted to win with UCLA.

So I choose to save my love for a player like Darren Collison, who in this interview may have become my favorite player in the Ben Howland era.  This is a guy who never complained in his freshman year when he felt that he was not getting the playing time he deserved behind Jordan Farmar, led the team after Farmar left, and then decided to stay for his senior year despite the fact that he was hearing from scouts that he was a likely first-round draft pick.  I loved listening to him talk about how much he loves hanging out with UCLA students and being in college basketball.

I choose to love Lorenzo Mata-Real, who took us to two Final Fours before Kevin Love arrived, and - who knows? - may have taken us to a third without the much-hyped one-and-done player who took his starting spot in Mata-Real's senior year.  The next complaint I hear from Mata-Real will be the first.

The first post I ever put on BruinsNation was an attempt to vent my frustration when Jordan Farmar was leaving for the NBA, as it reminded me of the pain I had felt when Baron Davis had left after his second year.  I loved Jordan Farmar and Arron Afflalo because they had been the Founding Fathers of the new era in UCLA basketball, and even if they were leaving early, they had bought into a new age in the aftermath of Steve Lavin.

I love Ben Howland for bringing in that new age and several other players who will continue to wear UCLA jerseys and pursue national championships.

Kevin Love?  Seems like a nice enough guy.  Plugged into a new UCLA legacy that existed before he got here.  Hope he does well at the next level.  Nice of him to stop by.  I like him a lot.

I just navigated to the UCLA Athletics page (some friends are going to buy general admission tickets to the Oregon game - the Rose Bowl on any given Saturday is still a fun time regardless of whether or not we have much confidence that we can win) and noticed the top story is called "Statement From UCLA Head Football Coach Karl Dorrell" on the front page.

Here is the statement, in its entirety:

"This statement is to clarify issues arising from an article written about me this past Sunday. During the interview, the reporter asked a question regarding the issue of race in today's college coaching environment. I told the reporter that there still exist issues in this profession, with qualified minority candidates not receiving college head coaching opportunities. In college football, six out of 119 Division IA head coaches are African American. This was the context in which the subject was addressed during the interview.

"My comments regarding race issues were expressed in a general sense, and clearly not as an indictment about my experience at UCLA. I have seen a lot of issues in this profession over the last 20 years, but I have not had to deal with any such concerns during my time at UCLA."

I'm in the middle of a workday and can't offer much commentary right now, but thought I'd give credit where it's due.

(If someone makes a comment that this is already in a comment thread, I will gladly remove the diary entry; again, I didn't have time to search right now.)

From the diaries. GO BRUINS. -N

First, Southern Cal loses in what I hear is the biggest upset (in terms of point spread) since they started tracking point spreads.

Then, just a couple minutes ago, I see this.

One of the two erstwhile sports marketers who allegedly made improper payments to Reggie Bush while he was still at USC has agreed to meet with NCAA investigators and provide documentation of financial transactions between Bush and him.

<snip>

If investigators find that Bush received improper benefits while playing for the Trojans, USC could be forced to forfeit games. The program could face sanctions if it were proved that coaches knew or should have known about the alleged benefits.

First, they most likely lose their chance at a national championship a few days ago, and now it looks more likely they'll lose their one national championship from their recent "dynasty".  If this sticks - and everyone knows it should, because everyone knows that many rules were unquestionably violated - the NCAA has to throw the book at Reggie Bush, and the program, because otherwise they will know they've made a mockery of their own system.  I had started to think that they would get away with this because nobody would step forward with evidence, so I'm extremely encouraged by this new development.

Sometimes a little distraction from UCLA football can be a good thing...

UPDATE: And it just got better (for Bruins fans):

[Kevin Love] promised that he would not be too aggressive in throwing elbows -- or anything else -- in the general area of point guard Darren Collison. USC freshman and fellow high school superstar O.J. Mayo reportedly broke the jaw of Trojans point guard Daniel Hackett with a misplaced elbow during a pickup game last month. "An elbow, yeah, right," Love said. "Dan's a good friend of mine too. I'm never going to lay a hand or lay a fist or elbow on a teammate like that." Kevin Love, a "good friend" of Daniel Hackett, implying to the media that the supposed savior of Southern Cal's basketball team plays dirty? And implies that it was a punch and not an errant elbow that led to the injury? I'm wondering if this is something that Love has talked to Hackett about and if it reflects the opinion of the Southern Cal basketball team. To sum up:

1) The Trojans' present football situation just proved that it might be bleak.

2) Their past is tainted by the Reggie Bush scandal.

3) Their future might be adversely affected by the past in the form of scholarship penalties.

4) They can't (as we can) count on basketball to make everything less painful when games start in November.

It's still good to be a Bruin.

UPDATE II: -N As expected Yahoo! Sports, which did all the hard work of originally blowing up the story has some more crucial details on the latest development wrt to the Bush scandal at Southern Cal. Two things really stuck out to me. First was how the claims of Bush and his minions of "extortion" seem to have blown up in their faces:

Two sources told Yahoo! Sports that attorneys for Lake and Bush have not spoken since the failed settlement attempt in June. However, according to four sources, Bush angered both Lake and Michaels by accusing them of extortion in a recent interview aired Sept. 13 on ESPN's "Outside The Lines."

In that interview, Bush said of the NCAA investigation and his family's alleged impropriety: "For me, I look at it as – and my family looks at it as – extortion. Because these were guys we'd known our whole lives … when I was a freshman in high school, they weren't asking for money. When I was getting older, and then all of the sudden my year with the possibility of me coming out, all this stuff comes out."

According to a source at ESPN, that segment aired despite a threat from Bush's camp that the running back would halt future cooperation with the network if the interview was not pulled.

Sources told Yahoo! Sports following the segment that Bush might have violated his confidentiality clause with Michaels by directing claims of extortion at the New Era financiers. The FBI briefly investigated claims of extortion from Bush's attorney, including interviewing several of Lake's family members and acquaintances before a federal grand jury. After the depositions, a federal source told Yahoo! Sports that the FBI would not be pursuing the extortion claims. So, so much for all the extortion BS being peddled by the Bush clan and the immoral cowards (who will do whatever it takes to bury their head in the sand for the sake of some cheap wins against teams other than Stanford). Anyways. The other thing that was just amazing to read from that Yahoo piece was how Bush still seems to be in a complete state of denial: "So my parents struggled to pay bills here and there, one of those being rent. I think just like any normal average family, you struggle to pay bills sometimes, and that's all it was. And the media kind of blew it out to kind of make it seem like we were living in this nice gorgeous house – which I never lived there – living in this nice gorgeous house rent free, and it wasn't anything like that. Uh, Reggie if this was just a simple matter of paying regular rent, then why all the lollygagging? Why all the hemming and hawing and the refusal to cooperate with the NCAA? And, more importantly, if there was nothing wrong here, why the need for a confidentiality agreement?

Anyone? Scott Wolf, you there? GO BRUINS.

Bumped from the diaries. This is really great read even though I do not agree with the point that KD was the best option at the time he was hired. He was a result of a faulty hiring process that was farmed out to the incompetent Donahue shill Bob Field. Still some great points here about how DG might have been building the foundation for the next HC. I still believe in a happy ending to this mess. If I didn't I wouldn't spend the precious few time I have time writing about it. Again nice post. GO BRUINS. -N

I have not posted in quite some time, so please forgive me if I make a lot of seemingly unrelated points here, pouring out a lot of thoughts in trying to explain why I think that, for several reasons, we might be allowed more optimism than we have in years past that we will finally be able to make the long-awaited step forward in football coaching.

First of all, when talking about the money UCLA would have to pay for a competitive football coach, I don't think that the coaches' salaries are the only issue to consider.

Two years ago (I think), during the UCLA Spring scrimmage (I think), they also offered tours of the Acosta Center, which includes training rooms (for medical attention); speed, strength, and conditioning rooms (which most of us would simply call weight rooms); meeting rooms (including one large enough for the entire team to meet at once indoors and with theater-style seating, which the guide said had not previously been an option), locker rooms, and other amenities used by not just the football team but the whole UCLA Athletics Department.  During the tour, our guide made what seems to be a very important point that I'm not sure is discussed enough when it comes to discussion about whether or not UCLA would be able to hire a highly regarded football coach.

Several years ago, the story went, UCLA brought in an unnamed but well-regarded coach to interview for a vacant football coaching position, which must mean that it was around the time that Dorrell was also being interviewed.  Some time later, according to the tour guide, word reached the Athletics Department that this coaching candidate had been talking to other people in college football about the dreadful state of UCLA's facilities, which he had compared to a typical high school program.

Thinking back to when I attended UCLA, I remember that the football players used the same weight room in the John Wooden Center that the general student body used.  I don't know where meetings might have been held, or where the trainers worked, or where the football players' lockers were, but I do know that they now have an excellent location in the Acosta Center.  There is now an artificial turf practice field, built since I took that tour, and I've read about newly remodeled locker rooms as well as a couple other improvements to the Rose Bowl for home games for the current season.  While talk is just now finally leading to action on improving Pauley Pavilion, and while we're still waiting for an announcement about major improvement to Jackie Robinson Stadium for baseball, a lot of money has already been poured into football, which makes it seem as though it has remained a priority that the football facilities not remain the laughing-stock they once seem to have been.  [Thank God that we had Howland and Savage to improve those programs without the needed upgrades, because otherwise these would have been five very dismal seasons for those who love UCLA as much as most of the people who are spending the time to read this.]

With the diligent work done toward improving the facilities, the next well-regarded coaching candidate will find that he has the tools he needs, and lack of infrastructure will no longer disqualify us in the minds of the type of coach we might wish to hire.

Also, when it comes to the salary we might be able to pay the next coach, I don't have the specifics in front of me, but unless I'm mistaken, this is a "magic" year.  Shortly before his retirement, Pete Dalis signed both Lavin and Toledo to new contracts that sweetened their buy-outs, handcuffing Dan Guerrero by requiring that both be paid their salary for five years in the event that they were fired, minus whatever other money they were able to make in new jobs.  Don't get me wrong, because I hate almost everything about Steve Lavin, but he did help the Athletics Department by taking a job with ESPN which probably paid him enough money to take him off our payroll immediately.  Bob Toledo, on the other hand, spent most of the next five years after being fired sitting on his couch watching television and collecting his UCLA paycheck, finally taking an assistant coach position in (I think) the fourth year after being fired by UCLA and now, in (I think) the fifth year, a head coaching job.  I'm not sure how much Tulane pays him, but it's possible that we are still supplementing his income.   Even if he does make more than the UCLA minimum in his new job, this is the first year since Toledo was fired that we're not paying, in essence, two football head coaches' salaries.  If Dorrell had been fired after his first season, or his second season, there was no way to know if he, too, would go the "Toledo route", forcing us to pay for two former coaches as well as the current coach.  I don't think that Dorrell will do that when (I refrain from saying "if" out of hope) he is fired after this season, but I'm not the one who is on the hook for the money if I'm wrong, so I can't really fault the Athletics Department for being cautious if this has been the thinking in the Morgan Center.

To finally get to the point, my theory, which was not discouraged by the Athletics Department employee I was once able to corner in a bar and voice it to during a Friday happy hour just outside Westwood, is that throughout the Dorrell era, the Athletics Department has always been thinking toward the next football coaching hire.  It has been clear for quite some time now that Dorrell is not up to the task set before him.  At the time he was hired, I think that Dorrell might have been about as good a coach as UCLA was able to hire given their circumstances, including the facilities and the sweet buy-out deals for Lavin and Toledo.  (Thanks a lot, Pete Dalis!)  Throughout this time, while they can't have honestly been satisfied with the direction of the football program, they have been working on improving the situation in the ways they could while waiting out Bob Toledo's laziness, leading to the point where leaving Karl Dorrell as the caretaker for a program that has been stagnant under his leadership is now, finally, not their only option.

There just might be a happy ending to this story.  Stay tuned in December or January.