Tinseltown is abuzz with the USC football coaching carousel, and those of us with monetary and other critical ties to the Bruin blue and gold are particularly concerned with how “All My Children: USC Edition” will impact UCLA.
The answer, my friends, can be found in Hollywood itself. No, “Up in the Air” is not secretly about the potential sanctions against the Trojan program. No, “Youth in Revolt” is not about Tennessee students’ reactions to Lane Kiffin’s sudden departure. And no, “The Princess and the Frog” is not a biopic about Kiffin and his wife Layla, as accurate as the title may be.
Rather, one only needs to see “The Blind Side,” the film that was able to make people other than Kurt Warner shed tears over a left tackle. Michael Oher, the film’s amiable protagonist, is a homeless kid in Memphis who blossoms into a standout at the position, and is thus recruited by a rogue’s gallery of SEC coaches.
The man who ultimately wins the hearts of Oher and his adopted family is Ed Orgeron, playing himself and at the time the coach at Ole Miss.
As evidenced in the film, Orgeron is widely regarded as the nation’s best recruiter, and after leaving Ole Miss he joined Kiffin’s staff at Tennessee.
That brings us to the present, where Orgeron is the most important member of the mass exodus from Tennessee that has found its way to Troy.
If Lane Kiffin is Moses, Orgeron is Aaron, the right-hand man, the smooth-talker, the guy who’s already convincing Tennessee’s top recruits to cross the parted waters and reach the Promised Land.
Orgeron is the guy that the Bruins have the most to worry about, especially in the long-term. Kiffin is a questionable leader, but the staff he has assembled is Justice League-esque.
That being said, the X’s and O’s guys aren’t exactly spring chickens.
Kiffin’s father Monte is currently the defensive coordinator, and although Monte is a legend in the business, I’m pretty sure his famed Cover 2 defense was first installed when Eve was looking for fig leaves.
UCLA’s offensive coordinator Norm Chow would be an ideal candidate for USC, but even if the Trojans are able to lure Chow, he’s not exactly a young prodigy himself.
That’s where Orgeron comes into play, a guy who’s going to be around for a while and whose recruiting prowess will be the most important tool in re-establishing the dominance of Troy.
In the immediate wake of Pete Carroll fleeing to the NFL, the good feelings around Westwood generally revolved around the idea that Rick Neuheisel would now be the unquestioned pharaoh of the Los Angeles recruiting scene.
That sentiment is changing with the arrival of Kiffin, Inc., not because of the man in charge of the operation but because he has Ed Orgeron in tow.
Orgeron has done his thing in the Southern California area already, as this will be his second go-round as a member of the Trojans’ staff.
Now, if it’s true that he’s calling Tennessee recruits that were planning to enroll this semester and trying to lure them to USC during this particular time period, that’s tampering. That said, the guy has a ridiculous work ethic.
UCLA fans cling to the hope that there is plenty of milk, honey, and five-star recruits to go around between the two coaching staffs. Recruiting is the lifeblood of college football, and it will be critical for Neuheisel and the Bruins to continue to excel in that area. With Orgeron now in the picture for USC, the battle for the best talent will be intensified.
The future will bring a clash of titans, and it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure that out.
If you’d like for UCLA to establish a recruiting pipeline on Pandora, e-mail Eshoff at reshoff@media.ucla.edu.