Kevin Miller writes to us and asks "If Dorrell is so bad, how come Tedford doesn’t have a winning record against him?"

Well, Kevin, it’s not like Tedford has a losing record against Karl Dorrell.  He’s 2-2 against him, winning in 2004 and 2006, but falling in 2003 (in overtime) and 2005 (when UCLA had Maurice Jones-Drew and we had Joe Ayoob) at the Rose Bowl.  Both UCLA wins were close, with UCLA needing a furious comeback in 2005 to pull off the victory, while each Cal win was a blowout.  Tedford’s a lot closer to being 4-0 against Dorrell than he is to being 0-4.

More to the point of your question, however, the hallmarks of bad coaching are inconsistent, unprepared, and undisciplined teams.  The players are the ones who are out on the field making plays, and it is the job of the coaching staff to put those players in the best possible position to succeed.  To accurately assess a coaching staff, you have to look beyond wins and losses and ask, "Given the players on the field, does this team play up to its potential?  When this team loses, is it to equally or more talented teams?  Are they a few lucky bounces from winning games, or is it due to inconsistent offenses, inexplicable defensive breakdowns, and inexcusable penalties?"

Any coach can win a few games with enough talented players, and for a major college program in southern California, there’s an embarrassment of Division I talent readily available in the area.  You could probably field a competitive WAC team out of nothing but alumni of Long Beach Poly High (DeSean Jackson used to go there, among many, many others).  Often times, good coaches will still lose because the opposing team is simply more talented, but that shouldn’t happen too often to a school like UCLA.  In fact, given the fertile recruiting ground that surrounds it, UCLA should often be able to win games not just because of skilled coaching, but even in spite of inept coaching.

So, while the wins and losses may be square between Dorrell and Tedford (and 4 games is hardly a large enough sample size to make any kind of judgement), Dorrell is often considered to be a poor coach because his teams, despite a wealth of talented athletes, often lose to lesser opponents, and in sometimes galling fashion.  At times, they look completely unprepared or unmotivated.  How does a team beat a powerful USC team to finish their season only to lose to a 6-6 Florida State squad in their bowl game?  How does any team with the talent UCLA has lose to Notre Dame this year?  They weren’t even competitive in falling at Utah, a team that was without both its starting quarterback and starting running back, and these are only the most recent losses, and are by no means an exhaustive list of disappointing performances.

To answer your question, Kevin, Dorrell winning games against good teams doesn’t prove that he’s a good coach; however, the losses to bad teams, in which his teams often appeared unprepared and uninterested, are pretty damning evidence to the contrary.

 

Well, *that* sucked Part I

Last we left off the entire team had made its way out to take practice and warmups for the OSU game.  Longshore was out, seemingly healthy and happy.

 

But snaps were going to all the quarterbacks, so who knew what the situation was?

 

Some guy there asked DeLaPuente for his autograph and DeLaPuente nearly gave it to him, but then had to run off to do something and said "Hit me up after the game."  I predict DeLaPuente wasn’t in an autograph mood after the game.

 

The D players were out there running drills on the East side of the field.

 

 

 

They would do these crab walks back and forth across the end zone.  Trying to maintain a good center of balance, I guess.

 

 

Notice the guy in the background

 

Then, over on the West side of the field, there were more D players running drills.  The drills basically consisted here of trying to use 1 move to get past another player.

 

 

 

 

Yknow, someday we should do an all-hair team.

 

The O players were out further running drills, too.  Here’s Best catching a pass.  I don’t quite remember, but I think that’s Tedford out there watching in the background.

 

But the D stayed by where I was, so most of what I saw was the D players doing their thing.

 

 

Follett was out there with his hot ‘do.  Seeing him suited up made me feel emboldened.  He went up to talk to a friend, who was all "You back?" and Follett was all "I’m back!"  I was excited!

 

 

Here’s our future!

 

 

Then, after all the drills were done, they all ran into the middle of the field to do more stretches.  Ezeff was walking around with a beanie cap on, so I knew he was toast.  !  Coulda used him.  

The Chancellor was out there walking around.  I asked to take a photo with him.  He asked if I was a big fan.  I said "Of you, not so much of Cal.  But now you are here, so why not?  Go Fighting Bruins!"  Not sure if I got the mascot right there.  

Speaking of odd occurances, as I was walking to my seats, DJ Campbell was dancing by the student section.  Odd.

 

So, if you can sneak onto the field before the game, I would highly recommend it.  You can get absurdly close to the players doing their thing.  And who knows, maybe take a few snaps before the guards drag you off.