The last Sun Bowl I remember we won I think 6-3. So that's encouraging. OTOH no way am I going to ... El Paso? And it's especially galling we have to watch Utah get the Rose Bowl. At least $C got bounced I guess.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the mercenary team of Lincoln Riley finally get exposed... With a broken Caleb Williams, they were toothless. I busted out laughing when there Utah TE just ran through #7. ( Don't know the trogie's name, $UC doesnt put names on jerseys). I remarked.... Bruins level of futility on D.
Sorry, the USC team is not a mercenary one. The quarterback came along with his coach, which he has every right to, and the rest was recruited by Riley's predecessor.. This team reminds me of Troy Aikman's in the late eighties or early nineties. It is one thing we don't like the Trojans. But fact is fact. They got a darnn good coach and we got one heck of a retread and our budget nearly cleaned out because of him.
Remains to be seen how great of a coach Riley is. In 6 seasons he has had THREE Heisman QBs (assuming Williams wins) and that does not include Jalen Hurts who finished second or Rattler. And he has nothing to show for it. He can definitely recruit, but that means nothing if you don’t execute. I’m not trying to rip the guy, but USC billed him as the next Saban when he’s win absolutely nothing surrounded by A LOT of talent. As for this year’s USC team, I think they were a 5th place team without Caleb Williams. So ya, I’m fine with the mercenary label.
One transfer quarterback with everyone else recruited by Clay Helton ( if this was the name ) and you called it mercenary ?!? Really ??????
Even if Riley might not live up to the " next Saban " billing, I'd take him over our retread coach many times over. I applaud him for one thing and one thing only. He fooled Troy Aikman. That takes some doing but he did it, baby. Bravo !
I'm sorry, but with all due respect "One transfer quarterback with everyone else recruited by Clay Helton" is just wildly incorrect...
$C's leading rusher? Travis Dye, Oregon's leading rusher in 2021 who transferred in for this season - and yes, I know he's been hurt, so replaced by their 2nd leading rusher - Austin Jones, who was a 3-year starter at Stanford before transferring in for this year...
$C's leading receiver? Jordan Addison, 2021 Biletnikoff Winner at Pitt who transferred in for this season, along with their #2 receiver, Mario Williams, who also transferred in to follow Riley from Oklahoma...
$C's leading tackler? Shane Lee, played the last three years at Alabama before transferring in for this season...
Yes, Helton recruited Tuipulotu who's their most talented defensive player, but to pretend these are Helton's recruits who went 4-8 in 2021+ just Caleb Williams is just ... Uh, No.
UCLA is headed toward being at, or near, the bottom of the Pac12 next year. QB, WR, RB stars gone; 66th ranked recruiting class; a coach who disdains recruiting; abysmal talent and coaching on the defensive side--what could possibly go wrong?
For me, I don't. It is my alma mater, presumably yours too. But you cannot grow peaches on a cherry tree. I am not optimistic about next season or any season when we have a retread coach in charge.
When we pooped and lost to Zona, prospects of a valuable bowl dimmed dramatically. Sun Bowl, Vegas, Holiday... All the same to me. I expect that DTR will not play. Charbonet might sit, too. The extra practice is key to long term program. Win is important to get to 10 wins. Went to El Paso when bruins destroyed VAtech. I don't expect this sun bowl to be competitive either.
Transfer portal is now par for the course now. All the best teams excel at it. But it’s not the 22 that make them a mercenary, it’s Caleb Williams who was basically their entire team this year and who came just because of the coaching change. Not every day a Heisman QB decides he doesn’t want to play at Oklahoma anymore.
So, if I have the math right, the UCLA loss to Arizona cost UCLA around an additional $2m in bowl revenue, nice going Chip! Of course, the loss to USC probably cost UCLA about $4m in revenue (potentially).
I thought schools did split but did get "extra" depending on what bowl they had. You may be correct, was comparing other conferences that don't have the equal split.
Chip Kelly getting the Bruins into a mediocrity bowl with DTR and Charbonnet possibly sitting it out only deserves half a clap. Not sure what the team's level of motivation will be to effectively compete and win against Pitt. That embarrassing loss to Arizona and terrible defensive effort against U$C (both home games) still hurts. Utah delivering a convincing knockout punch to U$C and eliminating its national playoff hopes provides at least some satisfaction to end this season.
It’s a strange one, but honestly shocked we haven’t had more transfers (yet). Has anyone looked at the portal lately? It’s literally changing every 5 minutes. There are DOZENS of former 4 star recruits with multiple years of eligibility left. Any school could do what USC did and build a contending roster withthe right coach. They’re guys that rushed for 1000 yards in the SEC, like 30 quarterbacks who were highly touted recruits, 4 stars from the likes of bama, Clemson, and Oregon. I don’t like it, but this is clearly the college football way going forward where basically everyone is on a 1 year contract. The days of 90% of your roster grow from 18 yr old freshman to seniors are sadly over. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if transfer portal recruiting matches HS recruiting eventually
There's definitely something to Chip's strategy of primarily prioritizing recruiting the portal over high school seniors. Used to think it was a bad team-building strategy, but given that there are something like 500 students and counting in the portal, and based on what I'm reading on other sites, UCLA is very active today in recruiting them, the portal could dramatically improve our defense next year while preventing a huge dropoff in offense after DTR and Zach leaves.
Already picked up a linebacker from Cal, and looks like UCLA is looking to plunder from Stanford too according to Eric Sondheimer.
Right, it just takes some getting used to. In theory, I'd rather recruit from there than from high school. The kids are less of an unknown and you have more tape on most of them. But we all know that is a risky strategy. However, it might not be so risky at QB. You only (absent injury) play 1 QB. Chances are if you have a great QB on your roster, any other QB worthy of starting is going to transfer. So anyone you pluck out of high school is going to be truly backup caliber (see eg Garbers). So unless you are bringing in the next Josh Rosen who is going to start for 3 years, what's the point in waiting a scholarship on 4th or 5th stringer when your next starter is going to come from the portal? I have no doubt that we are going to end up with a very good QB and RB out of the portal this year, and probably a WR or two.
With some notable no-shows expected, this mediocrity bowl may end up being more like CRRRRRRRRRRRRAP. Even Pitt (ex-U$C) QB Slovis reportedly not participating and opting instead to enter the portal for his final year of eligibility. In any case, Go Bruins and get win #10!
True. We don't know our roster for next season yet. But there is a discernible pattern in Chip's recruiting. It is largely transfers oriented. I don't believe this year will be any different. I am negative for valid reasons. Former AD Guerrero is, by consensus, an inept bureaucrat.. He made so many mediocre hires. That is a fact. I call a spade a spade as an alum. If Mora was any good, Rick coached well, Dorell beat everyone, they would not have been canned. That is why I said we could not grow peaches on a cherry tree. How can we win and win well when we consistently made mediocre hire in football coaches ?!? UCLA fans and alums are not like lemmings that follow their leaders over the cliff. When things are bad, we say it. We want things better and things can be better if we hire good coach. Chip Kelly to me is an exceptional con artist. He earned it by fooling even Troy Aikman. The latter worked hard behind the scene in landing Kelly and Kelly got the best of him, a stellar bruin and a former NFL standout. You would think his perception, judgement regarding coaches would be good. Enough said. UCLA is my alma mater but I will continue to speak out when things are not going well.
You are thinking like it is 2018. Transfer recruiting is incredibly important. Would you rather dish out another scholarship to a 3 star recruit who will redshirt and probably never be a difference maker or give that scholarship to a transfer who can come right in and play. I don't really understand the obsession with desiring to put all recruiting eggs in the freshman basket. It's almost as if you view transfer recruiting as a back up to high school recruiting failures -- very short sighted.
The best programs have top transfer classes. This is something Chip excels at, even if he has significant short comings elsewhere. I think the days of focusing on a recruiting class ranking are over because they do not tell the entire recruiting story. For one thing, the rankings factor in volume to a significant extent (yes i know 247 tries to weight transfers, but they do a piss poor job at it....i don't think Rivals weights but i could be wrong). Volume USED to not matter because everyone had more or less full classes and the difference in ranking was how many 4 and 5 stars you got. So if you purposely do not sign big recruiting classes so save scholarships for transfer, that is obviously going to impact your ranking. UCLA currently has the #47 recruiting class (we literally jumped 5 spots because we got a three star commit who is ranked #525...yes 525...in the nation...that should tell you something about the rankings system) on 247 sports because we only have 12 commits (3 four stars, 10 three stars). Baylor has the #20 ranked class with 24 commits -- 3 four stars and 21 three stars. So the different between 52 and 20 is ONE four star recruits and a bunch of three stars. Would you rather have the 12 extra three star recruits or access to guys from the portal who are proven and can start or play significant minutes right now? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. Iowa might be an even better example at #25 with one 4 star recruit and 17 three stars.
Look, our recruiting is fine -- actually, more than fine -- so long as Chip continues to excel at recruiting transfers. He's actually pretty great at this. In fact, given the talent currently in the portal, he should immediately stop giving out offers to three star recruits and swoop up as many transfers as possible.
So if you want to bash Chip, focus else where like his continued inability to maintain a staff that knows how to coach defense.
This is especially important considering Stanford -- with whom we directly compete for recruits -- just lost its coach. Watch us get 4 or 5 impact guys from them (instead of coin flip 3 star recruits who maybe provide some depth in 3 years).
Be careful, Evan and Steve on here just love the Chipster and if you say anything contrary to the Chipster staying at UCLA for the next 5 years and winning his usual 5 games, Evan & Steve won't like it!
would love if you can find a comment I made where I said Chip is a good coach. It should be easy to find if I am an apologist. Have called for him to be fired many times.
To each his own. He is a retread and he is a retread, a label befitting him well. You can cite all the statistics you want regarding top program competing and winning with transfers. The difference is they are indeed winning but this guy is not. Case closed.
I put my money where my mouth is. UCLA routinely solicits from alums like us. We always obliged. This time, we each included a personal letter to Martin Jarmond with our check inside the USPS special delivery envelope to UCLA Athletic Department. Essentially, we were all saying the same thing. NCAA football is the major source of collegiate athletic funds. Chip has yet to deliver and may never will. With the expensive buyout at its last phase, it is time to bring in someone who can best meet the challenges of playing in the Big Ten. We do not relish being walloped perennially by Michigan, Ohio State, a resurging Nebraska, my other school Wisconsin plus many more, not forgetting USC.
No, it's not to each his own. Transfer portal success is now material to a program. 20% of starters were transfers. You cannot succeed without doing well in the transfer portal. It is a legitimate strategy to purposely sign small recruiting classes for the purposes of saving scholarships for transfers. These are facts, not up for dispute. Chip Kelly's failures are not because of his recruiting. I'm sure Mr. Jarmond took your note to heart and will sorely miss your $500 donation.
Hmm ... your speculation of the $$$$ we collectively donate is off the mark. Try again, my dear friend. $500 is not even what we pay annually for the football / basketball season tickets. We give football tickets away left and right to kids and their friends. I like what you said, albeit sarcastically that Jarmond will indeed take our letters to heart, to his office staff, to meetings with Chancellor and other administration officials to let them know the high priced coach is not worth keeping. He fooled Troy Aikman but not us, the alums. Our facts, our rationale and even the $$$ are indisputable too. Just watch and see what happens.
No sir, I don't mind your sarcasm at all. I can deal with it as you can tell and I don't purport to speak for all alums, you included, if indeed you are also one of us and not merely a fan. Very humbly, there is a group of us who graduated the same year, in similar academic studies and we keep in touch, follow bruin athletics over the years. We credit UCLA and myself, Wisconsin, for our professional achievements. So we donate as much as we can whenever UCLA called. I may be the more outspoken one among us but we are all on the same page regarding Chip Kelly. Enough is enough.
You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. You know who said that ? Abraham Lincoln. Those memorable words befit Chip Kelly perfectly.
Also, you mentioned about the issues of assistant coaches. Let me tell you. The head coach is responsible for all the staff under him too. He assembles his staff the same way he assembles the players on the team. Granted some of the issues were not his making, but if he indeed knows what he is doing off the field as on the field, many of these assistant coach issues would be minimized. The buck stops at his doorstep because he is the head coach. Do we frequently hear other top teams having such recurring issues that you are now using them as excuses to defend this retread coach ?
We are tired of people defending and excusing mediocrity over the years. Starting with Dorell, then Neuheisel, Mora and now the retread. Just like in basketball, you should hear how people made excuses about Steve Lavin and most recently Steve Alford in ways eerily similar to some of your comments. Good thing we now have Mick Cronin, a gutsy fighter and a good coach.
So there you have it, my friend. No hard feelings but you remind me of those people defending mediocrity by citing trivial excuses and nebulous reasons. College football is a major income sport in America, bar none. This is why we hitch along USC to go to the Big Ten, one of the most lucrative TV markets in the country next to the southeast area. We play to win as much as we can, not play to have some average season and then say give him time to improve, look at the problems with our assistants and this and that, blah blah blah.
To be UCLA fan, let alone alum. does not mean we cannot speak up - not bash, in your word - against the football coach. Remember that.
How much did you donate to UCLA, Evan? You mock an alum who obviously donates money and tickets and cares about UCLA. $500 or $5,000 he donated--how much have you donated to justify mocking others?
The last Sun Bowl I remember we won I think 6-3. So that's encouraging. OTOH no way am I going to ... El Paso? And it's especially galling we have to watch Utah get the Rose Bowl. At least $C got bounced I guess.
Better Utah than USC
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the mercenary team of Lincoln Riley finally get exposed... With a broken Caleb Williams, they were toothless. I busted out laughing when there Utah TE just ran through #7. ( Don't know the trogie's name, $UC doesnt put names on jerseys). I remarked.... Bruins level of futility on D.
Sorry, the USC team is not a mercenary one. The quarterback came along with his coach, which he has every right to, and the rest was recruited by Riley's predecessor.. This team reminds me of Troy Aikman's in the late eighties or early nineties. It is one thing we don't like the Trojans. But fact is fact. They got a darnn good coach and we got one heck of a retread and our budget nearly cleaned out because of him.
Remains to be seen how great of a coach Riley is. In 6 seasons he has had THREE Heisman QBs (assuming Williams wins) and that does not include Jalen Hurts who finished second or Rattler. And he has nothing to show for it. He can definitely recruit, but that means nothing if you don’t execute. I’m not trying to rip the guy, but USC billed him as the next Saban when he’s win absolutely nothing surrounded by A LOT of talent. As for this year’s USC team, I think they were a 5th place team without Caleb Williams. So ya, I’m fine with the mercenary label.
One transfer quarterback with everyone else recruited by Clay Helton ( if this was the name ) and you called it mercenary ?!? Really ??????
Even if Riley might not live up to the " next Saban " billing, I'd take him over our retread coach many times over. I applaud him for one thing and one thing only. He fooled Troy Aikman. That takes some doing but he did it, baby. Bravo !
I'm sorry, but with all due respect "One transfer quarterback with everyone else recruited by Clay Helton" is just wildly incorrect...
$C's leading rusher? Travis Dye, Oregon's leading rusher in 2021 who transferred in for this season - and yes, I know he's been hurt, so replaced by their 2nd leading rusher - Austin Jones, who was a 3-year starter at Stanford before transferring in for this year...
$C's leading receiver? Jordan Addison, 2021 Biletnikoff Winner at Pitt who transferred in for this season, along with their #2 receiver, Mario Williams, who also transferred in to follow Riley from Oklahoma...
$C's leading tackler? Shane Lee, played the last three years at Alabama before transferring in for this season...
Yes, Helton recruited Tuipulotu who's their most talented defensive player, but to pretend these are Helton's recruits who went 4-8 in 2021+ just Caleb Williams is just ... Uh, No.
UCLA defense is a mirror image of USC. Awful. With players leaving on offense this year it seems next year will be a shit show. Hope I am wrong.
No, I want you to be right. A shit show would expedite Chip Kelly's dismissal. He doesn't care. He made so much from doing zilch !!!
Let me get this straight. You want us to suck next year?
UCLA is headed toward being at, or near, the bottom of the Pac12 next year. QB, WR, RB stars gone; 66th ranked recruiting class; a coach who disdains recruiting; abysmal talent and coaching on the defensive side--what could possibly go wrong?
For me, I don't. It is my alma mater, presumably yours too. But you cannot grow peaches on a cherry tree. I am not optimistic about next season or any season when we have a retread coach in charge.
I hope you're wrong, but I think you're right.
I guess.
Meh. My family will not be making the trip for this bowl. Now, Vegas, that woulda been fun :-)
When we pooped and lost to Zona, prospects of a valuable bowl dimmed dramatically. Sun Bowl, Vegas, Holiday... All the same to me. I expect that DTR will not play. Charbonet might sit, too. The extra practice is key to long term program. Win is important to get to 10 wins. Went to El Paso when bruins destroyed VAtech. I don't expect this sun bowl to be competitive either.
Ya what’s the point of playing in that game? We will have to watch Garbers get his shot even though he has little to no chance of starting next year
*what’s the point for our draft prospects
22 transfers isn't mercenary?
Transfer portal is now par for the course now. All the best teams excel at it. But it’s not the 22 that make them a mercenary, it’s Caleb Williams who was basically their entire team this year and who came just because of the coaching change. Not every day a Heisman QB decides he doesn’t want to play at Oklahoma anymore.
So, if I have the math right, the UCLA loss to Arizona cost UCLA around an additional $2m in bowl revenue, nice going Chip! Of course, the loss to USC probably cost UCLA about $4m in revenue (potentially).
I could be wrong, but I think pac12 splits all bowl revenues evenly among all 12 programs.
I thought schools did split but did get "extra" depending on what bowl they had. You may be correct, was comparing other conferences that don't have the equal split.
Chip Kelly getting the Bruins into a mediocrity bowl with DTR and Charbonnet possibly sitting it out only deserves half a clap. Not sure what the team's level of motivation will be to effectively compete and win against Pitt. That embarrassing loss to Arizona and terrible defensive effort against U$C (both home games) still hurts. Utah delivering a convincing knockout punch to U$C and eliminating its national playoff hopes provides at least some satisfaction to end this season.
Our kicker Nicholas Barr-Mira is entering the transfer portal.
First off, why??? Second, can or will he still play in our "bowl"?
Grad student?
Yes
It’s a strange one, but honestly shocked we haven’t had more transfers (yet). Has anyone looked at the portal lately? It’s literally changing every 5 minutes. There are DOZENS of former 4 star recruits with multiple years of eligibility left. Any school could do what USC did and build a contending roster withthe right coach. They’re guys that rushed for 1000 yards in the SEC, like 30 quarterbacks who were highly touted recruits, 4 stars from the likes of bama, Clemson, and Oregon. I don’t like it, but this is clearly the college football way going forward where basically everyone is on a 1 year contract. The days of 90% of your roster grow from 18 yr old freshman to seniors are sadly over. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if transfer portal recruiting matches HS recruiting eventually
There's definitely something to Chip's strategy of primarily prioritizing recruiting the portal over high school seniors. Used to think it was a bad team-building strategy, but given that there are something like 500 students and counting in the portal, and based on what I'm reading on other sites, UCLA is very active today in recruiting them, the portal could dramatically improve our defense next year while preventing a huge dropoff in offense after DTR and Zach leaves.
Already picked up a linebacker from Cal, and looks like UCLA is looking to plunder from Stanford too according to Eric Sondheimer.
Right, it just takes some getting used to. In theory, I'd rather recruit from there than from high school. The kids are less of an unknown and you have more tape on most of them. But we all know that is a risky strategy. However, it might not be so risky at QB. You only (absent injury) play 1 QB. Chances are if you have a great QB on your roster, any other QB worthy of starting is going to transfer. So anyone you pluck out of high school is going to be truly backup caliber (see eg Garbers). So unless you are bringing in the next Josh Rosen who is going to start for 3 years, what's the point in waiting a scholarship on 4th or 5th stringer when your next starter is going to come from the portal? I have no doubt that we are going to end up with a very good QB and RB out of the portal this year, and probably a WR or two.
This bowl game is gonna be GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT
With some notable no-shows expected, this mediocrity bowl may end up being more like CRRRRRRRRRRRRAP. Even Pitt (ex-U$C) QB Slovis reportedly not participating and opting instead to enter the portal for his final year of eligibility. In any case, Go Bruins and get win #10!
I knew this comment was coming somewhere, sometime, but still....face palm.
lolol LA Bruin Fan. Well done.
True. We don't know our roster for next season yet. But there is a discernible pattern in Chip's recruiting. It is largely transfers oriented. I don't believe this year will be any different. I am negative for valid reasons. Former AD Guerrero is, by consensus, an inept bureaucrat.. He made so many mediocre hires. That is a fact. I call a spade a spade as an alum. If Mora was any good, Rick coached well, Dorell beat everyone, they would not have been canned. That is why I said we could not grow peaches on a cherry tree. How can we win and win well when we consistently made mediocre hire in football coaches ?!? UCLA fans and alums are not like lemmings that follow their leaders over the cliff. When things are bad, we say it. We want things better and things can be better if we hire good coach. Chip Kelly to me is an exceptional con artist. He earned it by fooling even Troy Aikman. The latter worked hard behind the scene in landing Kelly and Kelly got the best of him, a stellar bruin and a former NFL standout. You would think his perception, judgement regarding coaches would be good. Enough said. UCLA is my alma mater but I will continue to speak out when things are not going well.
You are thinking like it is 2018. Transfer recruiting is incredibly important. Would you rather dish out another scholarship to a 3 star recruit who will redshirt and probably never be a difference maker or give that scholarship to a transfer who can come right in and play. I don't really understand the obsession with desiring to put all recruiting eggs in the freshman basket. It's almost as if you view transfer recruiting as a back up to high school recruiting failures -- very short sighted.
The best programs have top transfer classes. This is something Chip excels at, even if he has significant short comings elsewhere. I think the days of focusing on a recruiting class ranking are over because they do not tell the entire recruiting story. For one thing, the rankings factor in volume to a significant extent (yes i know 247 tries to weight transfers, but they do a piss poor job at it....i don't think Rivals weights but i could be wrong). Volume USED to not matter because everyone had more or less full classes and the difference in ranking was how many 4 and 5 stars you got. So if you purposely do not sign big recruiting classes so save scholarships for transfer, that is obviously going to impact your ranking. UCLA currently has the #47 recruiting class (we literally jumped 5 spots because we got a three star commit who is ranked #525...yes 525...in the nation...that should tell you something about the rankings system) on 247 sports because we only have 12 commits (3 four stars, 10 three stars). Baylor has the #20 ranked class with 24 commits -- 3 four stars and 21 three stars. So the different between 52 and 20 is ONE four star recruits and a bunch of three stars. Would you rather have the 12 extra three star recruits or access to guys from the portal who are proven and can start or play significant minutes right now? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. Iowa might be an even better example at #25 with one 4 star recruit and 17 three stars.
Look, our recruiting is fine -- actually, more than fine -- so long as Chip continues to excel at recruiting transfers. He's actually pretty great at this. In fact, given the talent currently in the portal, he should immediately stop giving out offers to three star recruits and swoop up as many transfers as possible.
So if you want to bash Chip, focus else where like his continued inability to maintain a staff that knows how to coach defense.
This is especially important considering Stanford -- with whom we directly compete for recruits -- just lost its coach. Watch us get 4 or 5 impact guys from them (instead of coin flip 3 star recruits who maybe provide some depth in 3 years).
Stanford coach quits on his own, right ? Chip wants to be dismissed. He won't leave on his own. The UCLA contract is too good for him to walk out on.
what?
Be careful, Evan and Steve on here just love the Chipster and if you say anything contrary to the Chipster staying at UCLA for the next 5 years and winning his usual 5 games, Evan & Steve won't like it!
These two reminded me of the Lavin and Alford apologists.
would love if you can find a comment I made where I said Chip is a good coach. It should be easy to find if I am an apologist. Have called for him to be fired many times.
To each his own. He is a retread and he is a retread, a label befitting him well. You can cite all the statistics you want regarding top program competing and winning with transfers. The difference is they are indeed winning but this guy is not. Case closed.
I put my money where my mouth is. UCLA routinely solicits from alums like us. We always obliged. This time, we each included a personal letter to Martin Jarmond with our check inside the USPS special delivery envelope to UCLA Athletic Department. Essentially, we were all saying the same thing. NCAA football is the major source of collegiate athletic funds. Chip has yet to deliver and may never will. With the expensive buyout at its last phase, it is time to bring in someone who can best meet the challenges of playing in the Big Ten. We do not relish being walloped perennially by Michigan, Ohio State, a resurging Nebraska, my other school Wisconsin plus many more, not forgetting USC.
Money talks. You just wait and see, my friend.
No, it's not to each his own. Transfer portal success is now material to a program. 20% of starters were transfers. You cannot succeed without doing well in the transfer portal. It is a legitimate strategy to purposely sign small recruiting classes for the purposes of saving scholarships for transfers. These are facts, not up for dispute. Chip Kelly's failures are not because of his recruiting. I'm sure Mr. Jarmond took your note to heart and will sorely miss your $500 donation.
Hmm ... your speculation of the $$$$ we collectively donate is off the mark. Try again, my dear friend. $500 is not even what we pay annually for the football / basketball season tickets. We give football tickets away left and right to kids and their friends. I like what you said, albeit sarcastically that Jarmond will indeed take our letters to heart, to his office staff, to meetings with Chancellor and other administration officials to let them know the high priced coach is not worth keeping. He fooled Troy Aikman but not us, the alums. Our facts, our rationale and even the $$$ are indisputable too. Just watch and see what happens.
Wow! High Roller here! Better pay attention to this guy who purports to speak for all alums!!!!! He'll really show Jarmond!
No sir, I don't mind your sarcasm at all. I can deal with it as you can tell and I don't purport to speak for all alums, you included, if indeed you are also one of us and not merely a fan. Very humbly, there is a group of us who graduated the same year, in similar academic studies and we keep in touch, follow bruin athletics over the years. We credit UCLA and myself, Wisconsin, for our professional achievements. So we donate as much as we can whenever UCLA called. I may be the more outspoken one among us but we are all on the same page regarding Chip Kelly. Enough is enough.
You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. You know who said that ? Abraham Lincoln. Those memorable words befit Chip Kelly perfectly.
Also, you mentioned about the issues of assistant coaches. Let me tell you. The head coach is responsible for all the staff under him too. He assembles his staff the same way he assembles the players on the team. Granted some of the issues were not his making, but if he indeed knows what he is doing off the field as on the field, many of these assistant coach issues would be minimized. The buck stops at his doorstep because he is the head coach. Do we frequently hear other top teams having such recurring issues that you are now using them as excuses to defend this retread coach ?
We are tired of people defending and excusing mediocrity over the years. Starting with Dorell, then Neuheisel, Mora and now the retread. Just like in basketball, you should hear how people made excuses about Steve Lavin and most recently Steve Alford in ways eerily similar to some of your comments. Good thing we now have Mick Cronin, a gutsy fighter and a good coach.
So there you have it, my friend. No hard feelings but you remind me of those people defending mediocrity by citing trivial excuses and nebulous reasons. College football is a major income sport in America, bar none. This is why we hitch along USC to go to the Big Ten, one of the most lucrative TV markets in the country next to the southeast area. We play to win as much as we can, not play to have some average season and then say give him time to improve, look at the problems with our assistants and this and that, blah blah blah.
To be UCLA fan, let alone alum. does not mean we cannot speak up - not bash, in your word - against the football coach. Remember that.
How much did you donate to UCLA, Evan? You mock an alum who obviously donates money and tickets and cares about UCLA. $500 or $5,000 he donated--how much have you donated to justify mocking others?
Just got a big transfer commit from Cal. LB Oluwafemi Oladejo. Dude has 17 tackles against us a few weeks ago.
Thanks for the update. I'll make sure to drop that into the holiday conversation with the family Cal football season ticket holders. ;-)
RIP Mike Leach. Such a legend. Glad UCLA football tweeted something out.