Dorrell: Among the nation’s five worst coaches!?

Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel didn’t pull any punches with his new list of the ten best and five worst coaches in college football.

Recognizing that "This is a real-time picture of who’s doing the best and worst jobs right now," Mandel’s list of the best starts with USC’s Pete Carroll. "Carroll’s ‘worst’ season since 2002 last year still involved 11 wins, a Pac-10 championship and Rose Bowl victory. He followed that up with a fifth straight top-three recruiting class."

Also in the top ten are Urban Meyer of Florida, Jim Tressel (Ohio State), Mack Brown (Texas), Bob Stoops (Oklahoma), Frank Beamer (Virginia Tech), Jim Grobe (Wake Forest), Rich Rodriguez (West Virginia), Mark Richt (Georgia) and Gary Patterson of TCU. Cal’s Jeff Tedford was cited as a near-miss.

In the bottom five were Al Groh of Virginia, followed by Dennis Franchione (Texas A&M), Tommy Bowden of Clemson, Bill Doba of Washington State and UCLA’s Karl Dorrell.

Of Dorrell, Mandel writes: "Last year’s USC upset was the first sign Dorrell’s Bruins were finally turning the corner – and they promptly followed it up with that Emerald Bowl debacle. On paper, UCLA looks like a BCS contender this year, but Dorrell’s track record doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence." Ouch!

Oh, yes, Mandel also lists Arizona’s Mike Stoops as a "Just missed" in the worst column. So, the Pac-10 got three spots out of 15 and two honorable (?) mentions. At least Mandel knows about the conference . . .

Comments

[Zarani Barrow]

I couldn't agree with more. Dorrell has failed to show he can inspire the team, the media, the city or the alums. Top talent guys would rather go sit on the bench at USC then come to UCLA. How do they have three quarterbacks that were in the top 5 out of high school and the guy we have is 29 years old!?

[Oso]

Seems like the OU sanctions are quite relevant to the ongoing SC/BUSH investigation and the other cheating going on across town.

Since the LA times main sports section seems to be under a code of silence about the blatant SC cheating, any chance we get some commentary here?

Also, since its been shown that City Attorney Delgadillo is pretty willing to intercede for influential people, its not so far out to suggest that Trutanich and Delgadillo stepped in to dissapear the rape and drug charges against SC athletes. Again, since the LA times is unwilling to look at the SC related corruption, perhaps we could get some discussion of that here?

[Matt]

Finally, Dorrell's getting the recognition he deserves. Hopefully Guerrero is seeing this. Keep in mind that football generates much more money than basketball does. So even from a financial standpoint, fire Dorrell and invest in a high profile coach who can coach! UCLA won't be getting any money from this alum until the fb program starts producing.