SMQB: Tim Skipper's Honeymoon is Officially Over at UCLA
Martin Jarmond's claim of fixing Bruin football is also out the window.
Let’s begin today with a look at the postgame press conferences. Yesterday’s postgame interviews are courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube.
Interim head coach Tim Skipper explained the game bluntly in his postgame press conference. “We didn’t win in the trenches.” That might be an understatement.
Of course, there’s no sugar coating a loss like yesterday’s loss to the Hoosiers when you lose by 50 points. Skipper admitted that the early turnover really knocked the Bruins off their game.
“We always preach starting fast, right? Well, we didn’t do that there, and playing against a team like that that’s very good in all three phases, you’re going to have to start fast. And when it creates a turnover that creates points, that’s hard to overcome. So, we didn’t really bounce back from that moment. You know, it kind of shell shocked us and it took a while to start get to get back going. So, you tip the hat to them, though. They did some unscouted looks that kind of messed with us and we w were we were caught chasing them the rest of the game, not just on offense, but on defense and in special teams. So, we’re going to have to bounce back, but we always preach fast start. We didn’t do that today.”
After Skipper, Keanu Williams and Nico Iamaleava met with the media, too. There’s not much that can be said after a loss like the Bruins took yesterday. Williams explained what happened this way:
“Shoot. It was just scheme really. I mean, they got they got a good coaching staff, good offense that they ran and they just executed. They’re very disciplined and they don’t really mess up a lot. So, we had self-inflicted wounds and they just took advantage of [it].”
Interestingly, this was the first loss this season where Nico didn’t sit there in the postgame presser and take the blame for the loss. Of course, if we’re being fair, when you get crushed this badly, it isn’t all one person’s fault, and one person shouldn’t take the blame for a 50-point thrashing unless you’re the head coach.
The fact of the matter here is that yesterday’s humiliation was needed.
Why was it needed?
The reasoning is simple: Martin Jarmond.
The embattled athletic director was far, far too quick to start taking credit for a turnaround, which didn’t start until Tino Sunseri left the program and Jerry Neuheisel took over the playcalling.
Of course, during the Michigan State win, Jarmond showed up in the press box during third quarter wanting to talk about the changes he made that sparked UCLA’s turnaround. He was nowhere to be found after yesterday’s loss.
But, at least now, the claims of “I fixed that!” from Jarmond can go away.
As if that’s not enough, it may finally be the final nail in the Jarmond’s coffin. With fans screaming for his head, his claim that he fixed the problem by firing DeShaun Foster and his coordinators doesn’t hold any water.
It’s one thing when you expose an overrated #7 team which loses three games in a row, costing their head coach his job. It’s something entirely different when you go into a game against the #2 team in the country three weeks later and you get boatraced by almost twice the point spread.
At the same time, this loss should effectively stick a fork in the “Let’s just keep Timmy” crowd. Don’t get me wrong. I like Tim Skipper. His energy is infectious. Butt the fact of the matter is that he is not the permanent solution for UCLA. He never was.
He wasn’t the permanent solution when he was named interim head coach. He wasn’t the permanent solution when the team lost at Northwestern. He wasn’t the permanent solution after the win against Penn State or Michigan State or Maryland.
The only chance he had to become the permanent solution was to run the table after the Northwestern loss. Now that that won’t happen, UCLA’s football head coach search committee can scratch his name off the list and get back to looking at serious options.
So, while yesterday’s results were disappointing for all Bruin fans, it really was what was needed for long term success in Westwood. It lets the search committee get back to looking at the best overall candidates, rather than Tim Skipper, and it eliminates Martin Jarmond’s claims that he fixed the program.
That should help expedite Jarmond’s departure.
Feel free to remind Chancellor Frenk of that.
Go Bruins.
Thanks again for supporting The Mighty Bruin. Your paid subscriptions make this site possible. Questions, comments, story ideas, angry missives and more can be sent to @TheMightyBruin on Twitter.
You nailed this on the head, Joe.
It would have been one thing if we put up a good fight but fell to an overall better coaching staff and roster and program by something around the expected point spread. But to be dominated in such a fashion that the game was effectively over after two snaps is far more telling. Lost the game in the trenches? More like they dug a trench and buried our poor lifeless corpse in it and didn't even leave a marker.
For me, Coach Skipper was always on a 3/4 season long tryout. I wouldn't have put him on any short list for a new head coach, but he's in the role now so we can watch it play out. Yesterday shows where that leaves us. I think he'd be a great candidate for a place like Colorado State where he has ties, where winning 6-7+ games would be a solid accomplishment, and where he can spend 3-4 years developing as a head coach to be ready for a big time job. Same with Little Neu in an OC role. Maybe one day, but not this day. If we really are serious about being a big time program and getting this thing back on track anytime soon, neither of those two is the solution.
The problem is that UCLA apparently started a landslide of early season head coach firings, and now there are a bunch a much heavier hitters looking for a new head coach too. Besides us competing simply to find the right guy, we're now also competing against LSU, Florida State, Penn State, Arkansas, VA Tech, Oklahoma State, and Furd, in addition to smaller fish like Colorado State, to hire that right guy.
If Jarmond had done his job with that Piece of Chip Kelly two years ago, maybe we aren't in this abyss right now - and that should be more than enough to add him to the list of the recently unemployed.
So LSU joins the ranks looking for a new head coach. Kelly appears to be another coach that could not adapt to the current landscape of NIL and transfer portal. Hope the committee is taking that into account in their search. Either the coach has that in their skill set or UCLA needs to add a role that fulfills that area.