This last week, I was asked to grade the UCLA coaching
staff by one of my twitter followers (@ConnallLamar), as it would benefit UCLA fans, which in turn
would let them know who they should be blaming for the current state of UCLA
football. Without a doubt, the best term that could be used to describe the
current state of Bruins football would be toxic dumpster fire. That in mind,
here are my grades of the current staff, from best to worst.
Demetrice Martin,
DBs
Grade: A+
Martin has been a constant on this staff for getting the
work done. He has been a lead recruiter, and his secondaries are often one of
the best units in the nation. Last season, when injuries struck hard at the
entirety of the UCLA defense, Martin used that misfortune to develop young DBs
who would eventually take over for starting jobs. Martin has developed depth on
this current team, and the secondary has been a major strength with the likes
of Randall Goforth, Nate Meadors, Tahaan Goodman, Fabian Moreau, Adarius
Pickett, Marcus Rios, Jaleel Wadood, and others. Few teams brag of the depth
that UCLA has under Martin’s watch.
Angus McClure, DL
Grade: A+
McClure, like Martin, has used injuries to deepen this
unit, and has created some fearsome prospects the last few seasons for the
Bruins up front. His star pupil this season is Tak McKinley, one of the
national leaders in TFLs. Just in 2016, McClure has rotated 7 players into the
lineup, giving the Bruins incredible depth. Despite some bad games (Utah, USC),
one has to give much credit to McClure for loading up and coaching up talent on
the front line, as his trench guys were constantly put into unwinnable
situations by bad offense keeping them on the field for huge spurts in games. McClure,
in my book, is a star.
Tom Bradley,
Defensive Coordinator
Grade: B+
I would have given Bradley an A as well, if not for a
couple of major lapses this season, again, referring to the Utah game mainly.
Bradley is a veteran of coaching defenses, and has had some outstanding units
dating back to his days at Penn State. All in all, one can be hard pressed to
blame any of the collapses this season on Bradley and his defense. Bradley was
a magnificent find, and is a major upgrade from the debacle that was the Jeff
Ulbrich era. UCLA’s current struggles cannot be pinned anywhere near the chest
of Bradley.
Marques
Tuiasosopo, QBs
Grade: B
It was fairly apparent that Josh Rosen was regressing in
the new offense that was installed for this season, with most of that evidence
coming in the red zone. That falls more on the OC than on MT. Where MT has
earned this grade is in his work with Mike Fafaul, who was never expected to
play much at all this year, much less have to start. Fafaul, while reminding
nobody of Cade McNown, certainly has played his guts out, and is always
prepared to get after it every week, and that is the work of MT, who has had
success elsewhere.
Rip Scherer, TEs
Grade: B
It is hard to accurately grade Scherer this season, as
the offense that UCLA was supposed to run (FBs and TEs) really has not
materialized like it was supposed to. That said, Scherer has developed a very
interesting group of TEs in 2016. Nate Iese is a very talented football player
who never really had a defined role in the N Zone offense under Mazzone last
season. He has found an identity now, and has excelled. Austin Roberts has shown
flashes of development and skill, and is an intriguing player, and Caleb Wilson
looks to be a riser on the board. All in all, Sherer may be the lone bright
spot on the offensive side of the football.
Sal Alosi,
Strength Coach
Grade: B-
Physicality and overall strength do not seem to be an
issue for this UCLA team. What Alosi does has nothing to do with the ability to
properly execute on the field. This football team, especially on defense, is
much more physical over the last two seasons, and that is a testament to Alosi
and his work. Where he falls short is on overall size on both sides of the
football. Of course, UCLA seems to be recruiting players on the smaller end of
the spectrum, so Alosi has to beef them up, but he is already behind the 8 ball
in some cases.
Scott White, LBs
and Special Teams
Grade: C
If you could grade White individually on both LBs and
special teams, he would have two completely different grades. On LBs, he gets a
solid B, but on Special Teams, he gets a solid D, and that is being generous.
White’s LB unit is spectacular at times. Kenny Young and
Jayon Brown are two of the better LBs in the nation, and Cameron Judge is
developing nicely. After those two, however, the depth does tend to plunge, as
production on tackles alone drops from 81 with Young this season, to 24 with
Josh Woods. White needs to get his guys more active in the scheme that the
Bruins employ, and that just means recruiting deeper at the position to get
guys in who can do the job. There is talent there that just needs to manifest.
On special teams, everything is a different story. JJ
Moulson, while showing flashes at PK from time to time, is not playing to the
level he was recruited at. Moulson is just 11/19 this season, and that leaves a
full 24 points on the field. If you consider how many games UCLA was within 7
points of, that could have been 3 more wins.
Punting has been an adventure all season long, with
Austin Kent finally being benched after just averaging a shade over 38 yards
per punt on gross average. Steven Flintoft is averaging just over 40 yards per
punt, and he should probably be the guy in 2017, unless someone gets signed in
the off season.
Jim Mora, Head
Coach
Grade: D
Mora was never the exact hire that Bruin fans wanted when
he came on the scene, but he was immediately a better fit than Rick Neuheisel
or Karl Dorrell at the time, both UCLA insiders. Dan Guerrero finally admitted
that he could indeed hire from outside the Bruin family, and in some ways, it
worked out, just not like we all wanted it to.
Mora is the football equivalent to former LA Kings coach
Barry Melrose. Melrose had brought the Kings out of some dark times, and helped
change a culture that was bleeding an stale, and that is what Mora has done in
some ways. What Melrose could not do was take the Kings to that next, championship
level, and that is also the problem with Mora. An interesting article on the
Bruin Nation site called the new measuring stick the Dorrell Line in conference
play. Mora falls well under that, as was described in that article. That fact
alone is why Mora has reached the end of what he can provide for the UCLA
program. He has done some good, but in the end, he must relinquish the role so
that someone can build on that foundation, because he is simply not capable of
doing so. It is what it is.
Kennedy Polamalu,
OC and RBs
Grade: F
Is it any wonder that this guy was not retained at USC?
Yet Mora still made it a point to go directly after him. Polamalu has been, in
short, a train wreck that took out a puppy park and a kindergarten before hitting
a nuclear plant. His offensive schemes have been purely offensive in the worst
way. When UCLA is on offense, you always find yourself asking yourself what
that smell is. His WR spacing makes you think that Mazzone’s was palatable. QBs
are always throwing into traffic because his offensive spacing creates traffic
jams that make you think you would rather drive on the 405 freeway on a
Wednesday at 5:15 PM. During the debacle against USC, I counted at least five
very specific plays where he called a pass pattern that fell well short of the
first down marker. Maybe he thought that his receivers were good enough to work
for that yardage, but when you need 7 yards for a 1st down, one
really should call a play that covers at least 7 yards of field BEFORE the
catch, not after it. His run game schemes are mind numbingly awful, and there
has been absolute regression in every area. In short, Polamalu’s offense is something that the Bruins are
not built to run, and no team should. It is an absolute trash heap of an
offensive system. And hey, by then end of the season, they are basically
running the N Zone again, so it’s like Noel never left. Now I need to vomit, and I have not even talked about what a disaster the run game has been, specifically speaking. How many guys have been rotated in and out without explanation, never giving anyone (Bolu, anyone?) the rock like a real RB deserves. Now I am vomiting, damn it.
Adrian Klemm,
Offensive Line
Grade: F
Every problem that the Bruins offense has as far as
execution this season starts with the line. That is where Klemm is supposed to
excel. The other issue is that here is an NCAA rules violator coaching on a
staff where he violated those rules. He now has a show cause to get work from
this point further in the college game. With all of that said, how in the hell
is this guy still working? He has not developed a single player on this team worth
a hot damn. So what that he lost three juniors after 2015. None of those guys
were all that good, especially Benenoch, the human penalty machine. Their
overhyped status was mirrored by their falling stock on NFL draft boards last
spring, and that falls on Klemm. So what that Colton Miller broke his leg. That
is why you recruit, for depth. The recruiting on the O line has been garbage,
and Klemm is supposed to be some kind of master recruiter. Master recruiter,
no. Master something else, maybe so.
Eric Yarber, WRs
Grade: F
Yarber…how do I put this gently…could not develop a path
to food for a starving horse. Darren Andrews has been a pleasant surprise this
season, with 55 receptions, but nobody else has more than 36, and that is
Jordan Lasley. Kenneth Walker III has never developed into a consistent threat,
and Eldridge Massington, who should be dominant, has been a stiff. Ish Adams,
who has amazing amounts of athleticism, has caught all of 19 footballs in 11
games. So much for that experiment. Theo Howard and Mossi Johnson have been
like ghosts. They are on the field, but are they really? Alex Van Dyke, who was
supposed to be a huge get in recruiting, is a junior who has caught all of 3
footballs all season long. Yarber could not coach an elementary school student
as to how to catch a cold. There have been so many inexplicable drops this
year, it is as if this unit has been playing after each participant lost a hand
in a Pakistani court due to theft charges. Josh Rosen was seen early in the
season yelling at his receivers. He should have been yelling at Yarber. If
Rosen had the balls to play on a Trump golf course with an F Trump hat, the
least he could do is show up at practice wearing an F Yarber hat.
Other than that, I am sure that Yarber is a very nice
guy.
So @ConnellLamar and all Bruins fans everywhere, I
sincerely hope that this article helps put into perspective whom you should all
be burning in effigy this coming week. It should make a nice enough fire that
you could roast your Thanksgiving turkeys over it, so you are welcome for that.
I have been a UCLA fan for over 35 years, and an official
writer and media guy for over 25 years, so unfortunately, I am used to all of
this. I would wrap by saying that at least we are not in the days of Dorrell,
but somehow, it seems worse than that in ways.
If you want to end this on a positive note, at least UCLA
beat Arizona, so there is that…right?
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