The rumors have been swirling for weeks that Karl Dorrell’s job is in jeopardy if UCLA didn’t finish the season well. With his team preparing to face rival USC, Dorrell spoke to me quite candidly about the disappointment of this season, the critics who are calling for his dismissal, and what he’s done to try to rebuild the UCLA football program. The following is the interview that he gave me after Tuesday’s practice.
Daily Bruin: Has it been a long season?
Karl Dorrell: No, actually the season went by fast. And that’s the honest to God’s truth. The season went by fast. But it did feel like there wasn’t enough time to get guys caught up. The games kept going, but when you have to play with new people you need more time. And you couldn’t. But the games kept coming, and you wish the learning curve was going at the pace that the season was.
DB: Has this been the toughest season for you as a coach, at least since you’ve been here?
KD: It has been. I’ve lost players (to injuries) in my career in coaching, whether that was in the NFL or in college, but never to the extent that I’ve seen here in this particular year. And really to key positions.
For example, the one position: running back. Going back to the spring, we went into this season hopefully having Derrick Williams, who was one of our better players at the end of last year, and Kahlil Bell, Chris Markey, the young freshman coming in (Raymond Carter). We had a promising young backfield, and all of a sudden Derrick Williams medically retires because he can’t play anymore, then Markey breaks his foot … and then you lost Raymond Carter your first week of training camp, and he’s your best speed back on the team, and then you lost Kahlil Bell.
It’s almost like injuries took every player at that position out. Now, there are positives. You look at a guy like Craig Sheppard ““ who left and then came back ““ with what he’s been able to do in the last couple of weeks, no one would have thought he was able to do that. Even his teammates didn’t know he had this in him, and it’s good because that’s how you discover guys.
And at the quarterback, I’ve never had this, either. As a coach, you’ve lost your quarterback for a time, like we did last year when Ben (Olson) went down, but you don’t lose three like we did.
DB: When you lost key players to injury, how do you approach your team without talking about a dichotomy in talent between the starters and backups?
KD: Well, it’s a little bit different for us. And it’s taken a little bit longer for us to build the program. For instance, my grades coming out of high school were okay, I had a 3.3 GPA. On the old SAT score out of 1200, I had an 850. I was okay, but I was admitted here at UCLA.
My competitors are able to take NCAA qualifiers. I have a limitation of how many of those I can take. So, when your competitors can take a whole class of those kids who just meet the requirements, and I’m limited to what I can do, it slows down the process of bringing up the strength of your program.
Now, that’s something I knew when I came here. We came here five years ago, with some issues in our program with guys leaving (the team). Whether it was a matter of attrition, whether it was because they failed classes, or because it was a disciplinary issue, I was lacking scholarships. When you lack scholarships, and you’re only allowed to bring a certain number of players in, it takes a while to catch up. You know, the two positions I recruited early has been the offensive and defensive line. The last two years, 13 of the 18 guys we took were linemen. It’s because my first year we only had seven offensive linemen on scholarship. You normally carry 15 in your program from year to year.
So in other words, I had to do things to build back the foundation of this program.
DB: Is that something that is magnified when there are sixth-stringers playing in the game?
KD: Well, it shouldn’t usually get to that point with the injuries. But in a number of key areas, it has because we haven’t had a chance to catch up in recruiting.
Like this next class we have coming in for 2008, I have four tailbacks. I get a chance to rebuild. It’s at the point right now where everything is about to jump because we finally have built the foundation.
But I don’t know. This might be my last week. But I’m going to keep working.
But I mention the recruiting because I know that if you go to UCLA, you’re a bright student. And we know what kind of student-athletes it takes to succeed here. But you’ve got to understand that when I get onto the field, my competitors are not like us.
DB: Do you think that some of the criticism you’ve received has been unfair? Do you think people consider the academic standards?
KD: But I can’t complain about that. I will never embarrass this school like that. I’m talking to you this way because you went to school here and I think you know the competitive climate on this campus.
Now, two years ago, the athletic department let me hire a learning specialist. That’s because some of the lower-end guys that I bring in here have to compete against you guys, the profile of a regular UCLA student. And my lower-end guys have 2.8 GPAs. … So how do they compete in a classroom with guys that are academically way ahead of them? They have to build their learning skills. So we hired a learning specialist so that instead of coming in at a fifth grade reading level they can get caught up.
We’ve never done that at UCLA until two years ago. So that puts guys on track to graduate because we are doing a lot of these things for the first time here. That is going to allow for me to bring in guys who the school feels confident will be successful. Before it wasn’t like that.
DB: Do you think people care more about winning, or running a clean program?
KD: I think our fan base wants both. And that’s what my challenge is. They want us to have the reputation we have and they also want Pac-10 championships. And I do too. Those are my goals. But I know it takes some infrastructure for me to be able to do that.
I hate to say it, but the guy who was before me screwed it up for me. And I had to clean it up and then rebuild.
DB: When do you think you’ll get to the point where the foundation will be completely set?
KD: Next year. We had a small recruiting class this year, and some of our best players redshirted. Our best linebacker in the class redshirted; our best tight end redshirted. I’m talking about what we’re playing with and what we currently have in the program. We have a lot of talent that redshirted this year. And we were allowed to do that because we have a senior-laden team with enough experience, and we didn’t need those guys. And we’ve got a highly ranked recruiting class coming in for next year, so all those players will give us a pretty big boost.
But it took longer to get the base because I had to get people on campus to realize the competitive market that we’re in. And if you want these things, I have to have certain resources in place.
Because I’m in these kids’ homes, telling them that they’re going to graduate. I can’t tell them, “You know what, I’m going to keep you at UCLA as long as I can and just try and keep you eligible to play football and then at some point you may not graduate.” I can’t recruit that way. I’ve got to promise these families that, yes, it’s a competitive school, but we’ve got resources in place for you to be successful. A lot of our competitors say to kids, “Oh, you don’t want to go to UCLA, it’s too hard. Why go there? It’s just too hard.”
I’m a product of here, just like you are. I love this place. I believe in it. I’ve won here as a player, and I know what kind of athlete it takes to do it. And we’re close. We’re really close.
DB: Is it a challenge to redshirt players this year for the betterment of the program if you don’t know if you’re going to be here?
KD: Well, it is a challenge. But am I trying to quick-fix this place, or am I trying to stay here for the long haul? And that’s the question I have to answer. If I wanted to get back to the NFL, then I would have done something quickly to have success and then I could move on. But I’m a part of this program. I grew up here, and I want to be here for a long time. I knew that the infrastructure needed to be fixed in a way that would get me to be competitive every year. And it took some time.
DB: Do you feel like the people in the athletic department still believe in your vision for the program?
KD: I do. I believe the people that work with me do. I know that the perception outside of the program is a lot different. And I know there’s a part to this business that the perception counts.
DB: What do you think of the alumni taking out an ad in the student newspaper calling for you to be fired?
KD: I’m disappointed because, as a UCLA alum, I would never act that way. I’m so proud of this school. It taught me so much about life and how to deal with difficult circumstances and how to achieve ““ of all these things because of its diversity. And I was disappointed that an alumnus would do this. But I know they care about winning, too.
When you graduate, it’s funny how quickly you forget the competitive environment on this campus. You can forget how special this place is, and how there are certain standards for athletes here that don’t exist at most places.
And I understand why people have been critical of me. Everyone has an opinion. But I’m convinced in building this program the right way, and I see that it is working.
Now, this year I know we all had the expectations of really having a special team and for one reason or another it didn’t work out that way. But I’m not a complainer. And that’s because I don’t want any of my players to use that as an excuse. I don’t want them to think that coach is making excuses and a guy who doesn’t take responsibility. And they’ll never say that about me.
And that’s what I had to overcome when I came back here because there was a coach who took all the glory but placed all the blame on others. And I had to be the burden of all that. And I had to, just so my players would know that I’m going to take all the responsibility. And that’s why I’m able to get them to play hard: because I think they know who I am.
E-mail de Jong at adejong@media.ucla.edu.