How to Look Terrible at Your Job, Featuring UCLA's Former Head Coach and Coordinators

The "Securing the Bag" All Stars have looked worse and worse as UCLA looks better and better.

(Photo Credit: @TheFOTP)

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As fun as the past two weeks have been for UCLA football, it has led to a huge question among both fans and media:

“What on earth was the last coaching staff doing?”

It’s not an ideal situation to be in if you are DeShaun Foster, Ikaika Malloe, or Tino Sunseri. UCLA football did not change out the players on the field since their departure, but the product the team puts out each Saturday looks radically different in the few weeks since they left. All three men are likely to find jobs in the future, but their prospects have been severely cut down as a result of this turnaround.

I wanted to take time to look at the specific changes from the three departed coaches for a few reasons. For one, it’s cathartic for me to look at an obviously broken thing and point out exactly how and why it failed. But I also wanted to do so as a rebuttal to Martin Jarmond, who was going around the press box during the Michigan State game, bragging that he was the reason for the turnaround.

(Credit: @latbbolch)

Jarmond trying to claim credit for UCLA’s turnaround is the equivalent of someone bringing you a mop after they spend a few hours destroying your house. UCLA is the talk of college football at this moment precisely because Jarmond made a series of screw-ups that led to one of the lowest points in UCLA’s football history. And as Ben Bolch pointed out in the latest UCLA Unlocked newsletter for the LA Times, Jarmond has a habit of front-running, showing up to claim credit when things are going good and mysteriously disappearing when things are going bad. Let this article serve as a reminder that Martin Jarmond hired all three of these men and believed that was the best course for UCLA football. He should therefore be excluded from the next hiring process (or, for that matter, any decision regarding athletics at the school).

DeShaun Foster

Look, this is probably going to be the shortest of the three sections, in large part because we’ve already explained exactly how DeShaun Foster failed as head coach. I don’t want to throw more dirt on his grave here, but this is a good spot to mention the vibeshift in the program with Tim Skipper at the head of the football program.

Skipper is almost the complete opposite of Foster. Where Foster was often dour and combative with the media, Skipper is exuberant and cordial. Where Foster would look uninterested on the sidelines during games, Skipper is engaged and animated, running around, firing his team up at every opportunity. Where Foster would be elusive in his answers, Skipper is honest. To boil it down, Tim Skipper looks like he gives a shit about the job he is doing, while Foster carried an air of arrogance that belied his inability to fix the problems he created.

The vibes of the program have completely shifted under Tim Skipper, which fits with a lot of the reporting coming out about the program under Foster. For a coach who preached Discipline, Respect, and Enthusiasm, those three tenets were lacking in the way Foster ran the program, often showing favoritism with some players and refusing to hold people accountable. Some of the media reports regarding practice (or what little they saw of them) were ridiculous, with my favorite being one quarterback throwing “routes” to stationary receivers while the other quarterbacks and offensive personnel just stood around and watched. Players did not seem to enjoy being in the program.

With Tim Skipper in charge, fun is back on the menu. I don’t mean that Skipper is having ice cream parties or things like that, but football is a violent sport, so if you’re going to play it, you should at least look like you enjoy it. The common refrain from players since the coaching change has been how much more enjoyable being in the program is, with higher-energy practices translating into good things on the field. Does the winning help? Absolutely, but UCLA was playing with increased enthusiasm from the minute the Penn State game started. There is more of a belief that the coaching staff will put them in the best place to succeed, and that matters to players.

If you’re DeShaun Foster, your career as a head coach going forward is over. In fact, I would bet on it being years before Foster even rises the ranks to become a coordinator. That’s how much of a fiasco his tenure in charge of UCLA was; it’s one thing to be bad as a first-time head coach, but it’s another to be as visibly bad as Foster was, with a team that gets notably better with your departure. The culture stuff that has leaked out is going to make it hard for Foster to climb the ladder for a while as well. DeShaun Foster is a UCLA legend done dirty by Martin Jarmond, who hired him to a position he was in no way prepared for, but Foster sought the job out on his own. You can only hope the bag he secured was big enough for the next decade.

Ikaika Malloe

Of the three departed coaches, Malloe is the one who I feel could have stuck around in that position and eventually found success. Malloe had a track record that neither Foster nor Sunseri possessed, and unlike those two coaches, we know he was trying new things to try and find an answer for the defense. Personnel were swapped out, different schemes were tried, anything to try and find a spark.

The biggest change the defense has seen under new defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle has been involving the safeties more at the line of scrimmage. The idea here is that UCLA is generating more pressure this way, getting more guys in the box to stop run plays while throwing more players in the backfield on pass plays. It’s definitely a boom-or-bust strategy, but given the talent that UCLA has defensively (which, again, I do not think is very good), it is exactly how the team should approach things. What I would note here is that Malloe likely would have tried a similar strategy - he employed it a bit last year - but instead focused on other strategies that were similarly gambly in nature.

The obvious problem that Malloe experienced this season is that he no longer had five NFL players to build his defense around. That’s a personnel issue that Malloe is partly responsible for, to be sure, but when the head coach decides to put more of the limited resources of the team on the offensive side of the ball, there’s not much you can do. Some of the reclamation projects UCLA took on this year, such as those involving Anthony Jones, Isaiah Chisom, and Key Lawrence, are starting to show progress, and unfortunately, Malloe is no longer with the team and won’t reap the benefits of their growth.

On the flip side, Malloe is the departed coach that I expect will end up back in their position the quickest. Again, Malloe has a track record (albeit a small one) of success and has a longer track record of being a good assistant coach. We know he was in demand this past offseason, when Florida State gave him a look before ultimately going with current member of the Hot Board (for now) Tony White, and it would not surprise me if Malloe got a job back in the northwest at Washington next season. Malloe is also well-liked in coaching circles, so while he did drop the bag, sticking with UCLA instead of taking more money at another school, I think he will have the most success in the long run.

Tino Sunseri

I don’t think anyone can have a worse two weeks than Sunseri has had.

It’s one thing for a team to start winning once you depart, but UCLA didn’t immediately turn things around when Foster and Malloe left, and both coaches at least had glimpses of competency this year and last year. It’s another for a team to do a complete 180 and turn into world-beaters the minute you walk out the door.

Here are some random stats I pulled up out of nowhere.

The shift in the offense following Sunseri's departure has been notable. I talked in the last Eye Test about some of the things Jerry Neuheisel is doing now that he’s at the wheel of the offense, but to summarize, the N-Zone system does a great job of simplifying things and covering for a weak offensive line. This is not to say the offensive line does nothing - you’ll note UCLA’s rushing yards per game are up over 100 since Sunseri left, but they aren’t being asked to do complex pulling schemes like before; instead, the line is just blocking the man in front of them while giving the talent at running back the ability to make a play.

At the start of the year, I mentioned that UCLA’s skill position players were the clear strength of the team, with a talented quarterback and solid talent at both running back and wide receiver. You would not have known that from watching the first four games, as Sunseri struggled to get the ball to his playmakers. Again, part of the problem is the struggles of the offensive line, but there was no adjustment to the offense. And I will point out here that Neuheisel is working with the same personnel as Sunseri had, but is getting them to play at a much higher level.

Sunseri will have a chance to rebuild his career - he’s young and his departure was timed in part to allow him to start rehabilitating his image - but much like Foster, his reputation is taking a major beating as a result of this turnaround. The change in offensive output is so drastic that Sunseri’s departure is hurting him more; had UCLA continued to struggle offensively, Sunseri and his agent could have easily spun the situation as a hopeless one where he was stuck with personnel he didn’t choose. But instead, UCLA has turned into an offensive juggernaut the minute he walked out the door, and combined with Indiana not missing a beat following his departure, it’s hard to find an assistant coach who misplayed their situation more than Sunseri has.

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The “funniest” part of this turnaround is that the rest of the coaching staff is still at the school and has clearly improved their job prospects going forward. Jerry Neuheisel has obviously opened eyes across the country and should be in line for an offensive coordinator job somewhere this offseason, but the rest of the offensive staff, especially offensive line coach Andy Kwon, suddenly gets to look competent again. Defensively, the slow growth of the defense will allow those coaches to sell development ability to future employers.

And of course, Tim Skipper will likely get a head coaching opportunity again. If he wins out, he might not even have to move.

Go Bruins!

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