For the second straight day, the Bruin football coaching staff
was shaken up. This time, the culprit was UCLA defensive
coordinator Larry Kerr, long rumored to take the fall for the
Bruins’ defensive struggles this year. UCLA’s rush
defense this season was ranked 116th out of 117 teams, and on the
Bruins’ biggest stage against then-No. 1 USC, they were
humiliated on national television, giving up a season-high 66
points. All those factors led to the decision to relinquish the
third-year assistant coach. “This was a very difficult
decision for me to make,” said coach Karl Dorrell.
“Larry is a fine coach and he did a good job helping us build
our foundation.” Kerr was one of Dorrell’s first hires,
and his time with the third-year coach goes back to their days at
Northern Arizona in the early 1990s, when Kerr was the defensive
coordinator and Dorrell the offensive coordinator. During his first
year at UCLA in 2002, Kerr surprisingly led the Bruins to the
18th-ranked defense in the nation and 2nd in the Pac-10. During
that year, senior linebacker Brandon Chillar recorded a Pac-10 best
133 tackles, the ninth-highest in UCLA history. From then on,
however, the Bruins’ defense went downhill as UCLA dropped to
106th in overall defense in 2004, and dropped even lower to 113th
in 2005. UCLA allowed 34.3 points per game under Kerr in 2005 and
allowed 232.8 rushing yards per game. Both statistics were among
the worst in the entire Division I college football. Those numbers
combined with the Bruins’ constantly missed tackles and
injuries led to Kerr’s departure. “At this time, I felt
it was in the best interest of the program to make a change,”
Dorrell said. To the coach’s credit, Kerr had to work with a
defense that was very young and consisted of only three senior
starters. At one point in the season, all the starting members of
the Bruins’ defensive line were injured and key linemen,
junior Kevin Brown and redshirt sophomore Nikola Dragovic, were
lost for the season. Combine that with the fact that Bruins’
senior linebacker Justin London and redshirt sophomore free safety
Chris Horton, players who were both critical to the Bruins’
defense in 2004, missed the majority of the season, and it was
inevitable that Kerr’s defense would struggle. Some possible
candidates to replace Kerr at defensive coordinator are University
of Texas co-defensive coordinator Duane Akina, who has been pursued
by Dorrell before, and USC linebackers coach Ken Norton Jr., who
was an All-American linebacker at UCLA from 1984 to 1987. Before
joining UCLA in 2002, Kerr was the defensive coordinator at
Colorado State for 10 years under coach Sonny Lubbick. During his
time at Colorado State, the Rams played in seven bowl games and led
the conference in total defense twice. This year, the Bruin defense
was resilient, allowing huge chunks of points in the first half,
but tightening up in the fourth quarter to allow the Bruins’
proficient offense to make their comeback. In the end, however,
high-scoring games and constant dramatic comebacks along with that
final miserable regular-season game against USC became the final
straw for the defensive coordinator. Without Kerr at coach, Dorrell
said in a release that he will begin the search for a defensive
coordinator immediately.
LONDON TO ACCOMPANY OLSON: Senior linebacker Justin London has
been added to the West team roster for this weekend’s
East-West Shrine Game in San Antonio, Texas. The Virginia native is
accompanied by teammate Drew Olson. The first-ever East-West Shrine
game is scheduled for Jan. 21 at 1 p.m. and will be televised by
ESPN2.