Karl Dorrell’s Sept. 17 press conference was about as comfortable as a root canal surgery.
It was just two days after his then-No. 11 Bruins were dismantled, 44-6, by a previously winless Utah club that was without its starting quarterback, running back, left tackle and No. 1 wide receiver. It wasn’t the first time Dorrell has had to answer critics after a resounding loss, but it was the first time in his tenure that he had to piece together a reason why his team suffered such a monumental blow that dashed any hopes at a national title.
There was talk that this was a watershed year ““ Dorrell’s fifth year, a roster filled with all of his own recruits, 20 returning starters and a favorable nonconference schedule to go with a watered-down Pac-10 round robin.
There were visions of a late season match up with USC: both teams undefeated, playing for the Pac-10 title and a ticket to the BCS.
Nice hopes. All gone after a mid-level Mountain West team showed the Bruins to be grossly overrated and under-prepared, which takes us back to Dorrell’s presser. He was standing there to basically answer all the media, fans and boosters, who might as well have been shouting in unison, “What the hell just happened?”
“We’re not going to make this a “˜state of the program’ thing,” Dorrell said. “We need to show more urgency to win, and there are some areas we need to improve upon. But we’re not going to panic. I’ve been through ups and downs here, and we’re going to recover from this game and play great football.”
A predictable enough quote. On the surface, Dorrell’s comments seem true. But should such a senior-laden team be suffering the same “ups and downs” we’ve had to witness during the last few so-called “rebuilding years”? Everyone following the UCLA football program had been looking at 2007 as the statement season for Dorrell ““ building momentum off of a win over USC and collecting what projects to be one of the top five recruiting classes in the nation for 2007-2008.
Dorrell’s harshest critics took the Utah debacle and ran with it. Here it is, they shouted, proof that UCLA is entrenched as a second-rate program. And as much as it pains me to be aligned with the myopic bloggers at DumpDorrell.com, who send protest letters to Athletic Director Dan Guerrero every time Ben Olson fails to complete a third down pass, they hit the mark on a fundamental issue: the low standards that have been set for this football program.
It seems like most people in the UCLA administration are satisfied with a decent program that is bowl-eligible every year and doesn’t embarrass the university with off-the-field transgressions. But shouldn’t the expectations be higher?
To date, Dorrell’s best season is a 10-2 record in 2005 that ended with a Sun Bowl win over Northwestern. People around here celebrate that year, and say that it elevated expectations for the program. But the expectations should be much higher than hoping to finish third in the Pac-10, beat the fifth-best Big Ten team once every four years, and go 6-6 or 7-5 in the other three years.
There is absolutely no reason that UCLA cannot be a public university with a prominent football program, such as Michigan or Louisiana State. UCLA has the allure of a big campus in a major media market with enormous exposure. The Rose Bowl is one of the iconic places in all of American sports. And most importantly, there is tradition. The likes of Troy Aikman and Jonathan Ogden serve as reminders of where this program once was.
Anyone who points to the bureaucracy and high admission standards that Dorrell has to contend with have a point. But let’s just look at the job Butch Davis is going to do at North Carolina. My guess is he’ll turn the Tar Heels into an elite program within three years. And for the record, North Carolina doesn’t have the football history that UCLA has.
Now there is a lot the DumpDorrell crowd doesn’t get. They see Dorrell as a stoic figure, an emotionless man whose message doesn’t resonate with his players. Anyone who was paying attention to Dorrell following UCLA’s 24-12 win over Arizona State last November, just a day after 2005 graduate Marcus Cassell died in a one-car accident, saw Dorrell’s emotions get the best of him. He was tearing up as he talked about Cassell in the ASU locker room.
Dorrell lives up to his reputation as an exceptionally nice man. His players like him. They respect him. It’s obvious to anyone who has spent five minutes around the team. This is not a Tom Coughlin situation, which is what makes the Utah loss all the more puzzling. Nobody knows why Dorrell cannot turn the corner and, if not reach the rarefied level of USC, at least make a Holiday Bowl.
And that brings us back to the press conference, where Dorrell reached for answers. Asked if his team might experience a slide now that it is no longer showered with national prestige, Dorrell was brutally honest.
“I don’t think we deserve to be ranked after (the loss to Utah),” he said. “I always thought we were a good Pac-10 team that needs to perform well at each facet of the game to win.”
It’s not everyday you hear a coach say that his team was overrated. Saying you weren’t as good as advertised is definitely one way to curb the faithful’s outrage over a disgraceful loss. Those aren’t exactly words of inspiration.
Dorrell quickly got back on message, stressing that his team can and would recover. And he wasn’t lying; they can rebound just in time for conference play. God knows the Pac-10 is filled with enough mediocre teams to pad the record. Who knows? Maybe they’ll recover to win eight or nine games.
But after five years, is that really good enough?
E-mail de Jong at adejong@media.ucla.edu.