Re the "wife job." This cuts both ways. There are a lot of people out there who would love to live in LA. But there are also a lot of people who would rule out a job simply because it is in LA. There are cons to living in LA (traffic, hollywood, cost of living) that simply outweigh the weather for some people.
In re your column, Dimitri, I lament that more here are not what we used to term on the old Bruins Nation site as codgers. (Anyone remember the Dump Dorrell site that was essentially the origin of Bruins Nation and then this spin off?)
Anyway, we codgers -- graduates in the 1960s -- have had an interesting perspective. The fifties saw UCLA's dominance (and only national championship in 1954) and Sanders' death from a heart attack in the arms of a prostitute (or so it was gossiped) to the miserable Barnes years, the brilliant Prothro era (cut short by him getting "homered" in the USC game by refs in yet another Figueroa fix), Pepper Rogers, and the interminable semi-decent Donahue decades, and the "Again? Why on earth did he get ever fired?" Toledo years. Those comprised an emotional, roller-coaster ride ending up in the weapons grade mediocrity to date. (I lay this all at the feet of that incredibly incompetent AD and former UCLA catcher we lifted from U. C. Irvine.)
I do believe that of the two PAC-12 escapees -- UCLA and USC -- the Bruins will fare better even while getting schlonged by the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, and others. Principally, this will be because of the relative difference between the ghetto that USC resides in and the relative ambiance of Westwood. I mean, why on earth leave the Midwest and live in an area fraught with crack houses, homeless, and unending campouts on the Harbor Freeway overpasses? You can always go to Detroitus for that!
It'll take a few years and I will probably be occupying a slot over in the Elysian fields adjacent to Veteran Avenue but those Big Ten bucks will have an effect -- ultimately!
So, every once in a while, stop by and drop a sports page near my headstone so I can catch up. ONLY DON'T MAKE IT THE L.A. TIMES! I CAN'T STAND THAT RAG!
(Forgive me! I forgot the two years of Dick Vermeil and that magnificent RB win over Ohio State! Like Larry Farmer as the BB coach, if only he coulda stuck around!)
I think 7-5 Kelly stays. Hopefully we can win 9 or 10, the schedule is certainly favorable with $C having a new coach and Stanford on the skids. Getting Utah at the Rose Bowl helps too. But to answer the main question, hell yeah. UCLA is a top ten job for any coach. But not Kiffin please.
Your well written article is full of hope and delusion!! :) The UCLA football job has never been a desirable job!! Look at who UCLA has hired historically? Has UCLA ever taken a hot coach from another school or from the NFL? UCLA got played by Chip Kelly's agent. No one else was seriously pursuing him. They put a lot of lipstick on that pig and UCLA bought into it! :) Look at what your coaches have accomplished before coming to UCLA, during and AFTER. After leaving UCLA, has any coach gone on to better things! I don't know your history very well but I doubt it. If you look at what UCLA has accomplished in football, your peers are really Colorado (national championship in1990 outright), Cal, ASU, and may be Utah (no one in their right mind would argue that those are top football schools). The last 20 plus years have not been kind to UCLA and that makes the job even less appealing. Being 100 million plus in debt doesn't help either. To recap, yes you have Westwood, academics, weather (do those things really matter?, where is the University of Alabama located again? Exactly!) etc but you lack the football pedigree and I doubt any coach would take UCLA seriously. May be with the new money in the Big10, things could potentially change but we'll first have to see UCLA performing better than it has the last 20 years, no easy task since you are going into an even more competitive environment.
Could be worse… Nebraska became the first major-conference team in the AP Poll Era, which goes back to 1936, to lose seven straight games by single digits…
We can debate HC all we want... but right now we're stuck with Chip Kelly. And he has proven that he can't even garner interest (never mind close) for a top-tier DC candidate. By the way... is there any content planned for Bill McGovern on this site yet? He seems like another Chip Kelly buddy that never did much in the NFL. Coaching Luke Kuechly is fairly impressive though.
Re the "wife job." This cuts both ways. There are a lot of people out there who would love to live in LA. But there are also a lot of people who would rule out a job simply because it is in LA. There are cons to living in LA (traffic, hollywood, cost of living) that simply outweigh the weather for some people.
10 W's minimum this year, or he'll be tarmacked.
In re your column, Dimitri, I lament that more here are not what we used to term on the old Bruins Nation site as codgers. (Anyone remember the Dump Dorrell site that was essentially the origin of Bruins Nation and then this spin off?)
Anyway, we codgers -- graduates in the 1960s -- have had an interesting perspective. The fifties saw UCLA's dominance (and only national championship in 1954) and Sanders' death from a heart attack in the arms of a prostitute (or so it was gossiped) to the miserable Barnes years, the brilliant Prothro era (cut short by him getting "homered" in the USC game by refs in yet another Figueroa fix), Pepper Rogers, and the interminable semi-decent Donahue decades, and the "Again? Why on earth did he get ever fired?" Toledo years. Those comprised an emotional, roller-coaster ride ending up in the weapons grade mediocrity to date. (I lay this all at the feet of that incredibly incompetent AD and former UCLA catcher we lifted from U. C. Irvine.)
I do believe that of the two PAC-12 escapees -- UCLA and USC -- the Bruins will fare better even while getting schlonged by the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, and others. Principally, this will be because of the relative difference between the ghetto that USC resides in and the relative ambiance of Westwood. I mean, why on earth leave the Midwest and live in an area fraught with crack houses, homeless, and unending campouts on the Harbor Freeway overpasses? You can always go to Detroitus for that!
It'll take a few years and I will probably be occupying a slot over in the Elysian fields adjacent to Veteran Avenue but those Big Ten bucks will have an effect -- ultimately!
So, every once in a while, stop by and drop a sports page near my headstone so I can catch up. ONLY DON'T MAKE IT THE L.A. TIMES! I CAN'T STAND THAT RAG!
(Forgive me! I forgot the two years of Dick Vermeil and that magnificent RB win over Ohio State! Like Larry Farmer as the BB coach, if only he coulda stuck around!)
I think 7-5 Kelly stays. Hopefully we can win 9 or 10, the schedule is certainly favorable with $C having a new coach and Stanford on the skids. Getting Utah at the Rose Bowl helps too. But to answer the main question, hell yeah. UCLA is a top ten job for any coach. But not Kiffin please.
Your well written article is full of hope and delusion!! :) The UCLA football job has never been a desirable job!! Look at who UCLA has hired historically? Has UCLA ever taken a hot coach from another school or from the NFL? UCLA got played by Chip Kelly's agent. No one else was seriously pursuing him. They put a lot of lipstick on that pig and UCLA bought into it! :) Look at what your coaches have accomplished before coming to UCLA, during and AFTER. After leaving UCLA, has any coach gone on to better things! I don't know your history very well but I doubt it. If you look at what UCLA has accomplished in football, your peers are really Colorado (national championship in1990 outright), Cal, ASU, and may be Utah (no one in their right mind would argue that those are top football schools). The last 20 plus years have not been kind to UCLA and that makes the job even less appealing. Being 100 million plus in debt doesn't help either. To recap, yes you have Westwood, academics, weather (do those things really matter?, where is the University of Alabama located again? Exactly!) etc but you lack the football pedigree and I doubt any coach would take UCLA seriously. May be with the new money in the Big10, things could potentially change but we'll first have to see UCLA performing better than it has the last 20 years, no easy task since you are going into an even more competitive environment.
Could be worse… Nebraska became the first major-conference team in the AP Poll Era, which goes back to 1936, to lose seven straight games by single digits…
We can debate HC all we want... but right now we're stuck with Chip Kelly. And he has proven that he can't even garner interest (never mind close) for a top-tier DC candidate. By the way... is there any content planned for Bill McGovern on this site yet? He seems like another Chip Kelly buddy that never did much in the NFL. Coaching Luke Kuechly is fairly impressive though.