The UCLA football program has stepped up to the demands of elite college sports with their hiring of Chip Kelly, something that we have not seen from the UCLA Athletic Department in recent history.
To borrow a phrase from the late President Ronald Reagan, it’s morning again in Westwood. Specifically for the UCLA football team.
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In the span of a week, the trajectory, the perception, and, most importantly, the culture of UCLA athletics have all changed. UCLA swung for the fences and for the first time in the modern era, it connected and hit a home run. Bruin fans now believe this program can be a power player in college athletics after generations of expecting the worst, but hoping for the best.
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On the morning of November 19, the Sunday after the most recent loss to USC, there wasn’t a single Bruin fan who was realistically expecting an imminent announcement that UCLA had triggered Jim Mora’s $12 million buyout and relieved him of his coaching duties in Westwood. As Nathan Eberhardt mentioned on the episode of the UCLA B Team podcast that followed, many of us were actually apprehensive that the worst-case scenario had unfolded: UCLA had lost to USC, but was competitive enough that UCLA’s administrators could spin the close loss into a moral victory and justification to retain Mora.
It was the worst of both worlds, with no win over the hated ones across town to lift our spirits and no decisive loss to make it clear that Mora’s time at UCLA should be brought to an end. However, during that period of uncertainty, the moment that will likely become the most important event of the modern era of UCLA Athletics occurred. The Bruins, by firing Jim Mora in-season and paying his $12 million buyout in order to try to pounce on the availability of an elite coach in Chip Kelly, announced to the world that they were finally going to play the college athletics game for keeps and were ready to make good on the promise that so many people have seen in UCLA Football for so long.
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With a single announcement, the paradigm completely changed and UCLA Athletics as we knew it was banished, replaced with a version that most had long been pining for, an ambitious and well-funded version ready to realize the potential of the program. Not only did the Bruins act boldly, decisively, and swiftly in firing Mora, but just as shockingly, they repeated the trick less than a week later, when the hiring of Chip Kelly as UCLA’s head football coach was confirmed.
UCLA's coaching search was as flawlessly executed as any that comes to mind: Got the market's top candidate and made it public on a day with relatively little other coaching news to compete with and came at a time when the athletic dept. was in desperate need of good news.
— Kyle Bonagura (@BonaguraESPN) November 26, 2017
Now, as the SEC burns and the coaching carousel turns faster than it ever has, UCLA is in a position of strength, having landed the biggest coup in the football program’s history and doing so before it got sucked into the vicious cycle of a prolonged coaching search.
You all need to be more like UCLA football.
— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) November 26, 2017
2017 is very odd. https://t.co/dlo8wHGcW7
No longer will UCLA fans feel like every hire will be nickeled and dimed and evaluated on how little it will embarrass the academic side of the university. Instead, there will be a renewed sense of confidence that UCLA finally realizes what UCLA Athletics can be and will act accordingly with that level of self-security. No coach, no recruit, no level of success should be unattainable now that the financial and attention investments in UCLA Athletics are lining up with the inherent advantages of being UCLA.
Very few other programs can even match, much less exceed, the natural advantages available to UCLA, which is why UCLA Athletics, especially Football, has long been referred to as a sleeping giant. However, the sleeping giant looks like, after years of prompting, it is finally rousing itself awake. UCLA has taken its seat at the adult table of college sports.
Next: The perception that Chip Kelly will bring success
“UCLA landed the biggest prize of the 2017 coaching carousel“- these are words being said about UCLA. About UCLA Football. About UCLA Athletics. If you feel like you’re in a dream, pinch yourself; you’re very awake and the profound and swift makeover of UCLA’s athletic culture is very real.