It finally happened.
During the day, I received several voice mails like this:
“He’s finally gone!”
“Yes! He’s outta here. Thank you Dan
Guerrero!”
“Ahh, why didn’t they fire Lavin?”
December 9, 2002 is a day many UCLA football fans will remember
with glee. The guy some called “Taliban Toledo” was
fired.
I for one am not so thrilled.
I’m not saying Bob Toledo was a good football coach.
I’m not angry he was fired. Part of my apathy may come from
the fact that this is finals week, and I have more important things
to worry about, like orthogonality and eigenvalues of matrices.
Still, this shouldn’t be a day to celebrate for Bruin
fans. Many questions remain to be answered.
Who will replace Toledo? What happens to Phil Snow and Kelly
Skipper? Does Guerrero fire Lavin now?
And more importantly, who will wave the towel now that Ed
Kezerian has been promoted to interim head coach ““ or can he
still do both?
This could actually be hilarious. Has anyone else in the history
of sports been promoted from assistant director of Academic
Services (a.k.a. towel-waving test-taker) to head coach? I’d
love to see him wave his towel while talking to Drew Olson and
Tyler Ebell about which plays they should run.
Back to Toledo, I actually think he did a better job of coaching
this year than last.
Last year, his team was supposed to be a serious contender, this
year, they were supposed to finish sixth. And they finished fourth.
That sounds like an improvement to me.
Sure they lost to “˜SC 52-21. USC is currently No. 5 in the
country, and also killed Notre Dame, a top-10 team.
That being said, Toledo should have been fired last season. That
was a huge disaster.
This season, he has a young group of players poised for success
next year. Even Oklahoma is scared of the Bruins; they’re
trying to get out of playing here next year. Olson, Ebell, Matt
Moore (all key skill players), Spencer Havner, Jarrad Page, Junior
Taylor and Mike McCloskey will all have one more year of experience
next year.
Whoever takes Toledo’s spot will inherit a team that will
contend for the Pac-10 title (unless Southern Cal gets inexplicably
better).
In conclusion, Toledo was still a bad coach. His decision-making
was at times horrendous. Still, if he was going to be fired, he
should have been fired last year, or been given another year.
My vote for the next head coach goes to Norm Chow. It will take
a Trojan to show the Bruins how to play football.