UCLA coaching job rife with barriers

Good job. It’s such a relative term when talking about a head football coach at a major college program. A product manager is a good job. A nurse. An engineer. Patti LaBelle’s bodyguard for the sheer hilarity of there being such a position.

But making millions of dollars over the life of a contract to recruit young men skilled enough to run correct routes or play the right coverage while also being awake enough to regularly attend class suggests a greater upside to the profession than merely decent.

Still, it’s like everything. A food chain separates the best from the worst opportunities.

Where does the UCLA job fit?

Much closer to Washington State than Ohio State.

The Bruins tonight play Brigham Young in a Las Vegas Bowl game where DeWayne Walker will lead UCLA onto a field for the first and likely final time as its head coach. He’s wearing the dreaded interim name tag, and it seems more and more like athletic director Dan Guerrero’s search to replace the fired Karl Dorrell is intent on landing a recognized name than permanently promoting the team’s defensive coordinator.

Which makes sense, because if you either can hire a guy (Rick Neuheisel) who had rules issues with the NCAA at two previous college stops and who found winning difficult only when his own recruits were expected to produce or talk to one (Mike Bellotti) who would be serious about UCLA only if he suddenly warmed to the idea of a smaller house, higher cost of living and entire facilities that don’t rival his current school’s locker room bathroom stalls, well, why the heck spend time considering a talented, respected, proven assistant such as Walker?

It’s a difficult job for anyone who gets it. There are obvious barriers, some UCLA can control (salaries for assistants) and some it can’t (this just in: Pete Carroll’s job is safe). Walker is doing his best to keep an outstanding recruiting class from falling apart amid all the uncertainty, but even if all those committed ultimately sign, it doesn’t mean the UCLA job will be any better than the middle-of-the-road Pac-10 team the program is today.

Why?

About that so-called tradition …

Know this: There is a distinction between that of the overall program and only football. UCLA athletics has won 100 national championships. Those four letters in regard to collective collegiate success have no equal.

But to say UCLA is a good football job now because of past success is to say Rick Springfield once played larger gigs than the county fair. To state the Bruins have won more bowl games than any Pac-10 team since 1982 is to forget mentioning they haven’t in the last nine seasons even made the Holiday Bowl as the league’s No. 2 postseason selection and only twice in that span reached the Sun Bowl as its No. 3.

It’s a basketball school — then, now, always. That doesn’t mean you can’t win consistently in football at UCLA. Terry Donahue did. His last season was 1995. Yeah, that long ago.

About those coaching salaries and entrance requirements …

Never feel sorry for a major-college assistant (they all make enough to afford super-sizing any combo meal), but there’s no denying the fact one reason Dorrell’s constant staff changes kept Bekins in business was a state-university practice of falling behind the national trend in salaries.

Now consider entrance requirements that rank above already-difficult UC standards. It makes things tough, not paying good coaches enough money to come or stay and watching some of your best recruits enroll at Cal.

About that other coach and team across town …

Imagine being asked to play cello at one end of the auditorium while Yo-Yo Ma does at the other. Not good.

Do you know what happens in the Los Angeles market when your football program is overshadowed to the extent UCLA has been since Carroll arrived at Southern California, having lost six of seven games in the series since 2001?

You become the L.A. Kings.

“Anyone who is competitive would not want to acknowledge something isn’t possible,” BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “But anyone who earns the UCLA job has to understand part of the expectation is to win that game (against USC). No matter the rest of success or lack of success you have, that game is judged independently. It’s a different standard.”

It’s one many feel impossible for any new UCLA coach until Carroll moves on, the reason given most when debating just how good a job it is to lead the Bruins today.

Which is to say it’s much closer to Washington State than Ohio State.

Ed Graney’s column is published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.