Rick's Out! What Happened

There was no question this needed to happen, Rick is a great Bruin whose passion for and loyalty to UCLA is without question but WOW this just did not work out at all. How bad was Rick's tenure at UCLA? Well his record of 21-28 makes Karl Dorrell 35-27 look like a miracle worker. Hopefully Neuheisel can put that SC Law Degree to work because I don't see a way in which he gets another Division 1 Coaching Job in the immediate future.

There's been numerous problems during Rick's tenure that led to him hitting the coaching firing squad but let's break down the big 3 right here...

1) La Pistola! - Rick decides after spending four days with the Nevada coaches that a switch to the pistol was a wonderful idea, this coming off his second year where the Bruins went 7-6 and Prince looked like a half decent QB. The idea was that the Pistol would reignite the run game that UCLA had been lacking in his first 2 seasons but he obviously didn't consider the negative effect this would have on the passing game, QB footwork, and also the Injuries that derailed a few Bruin Careers not to mention that his Hall of Fame OC Norm Chow had no idea how to run it and didn't care to learn. Rick put the Pistol straight to his UCLA career thanks to the switch! Just an awful decision the whole way around.

2) The Kevin Prince Man-Crush - Prince had a promising freshman year for the Bruins but then it was all downhill from there. His inability to stay healthy throughout the next two seasons was another reason for the Pistol's failure. He gradually became a worse passer throughout his career, never showing the gun that he had as a Frosh. After passing for 2,050 yds that first year, he has not come close since. While every practice report this summer had Richard Brehaut as the top QB, Neuheisel elected to go with Prince, a decision that cost him most notably a chance to even compete with Texas as Prince threw 3 picks in 7 1st Quarter passes... wow

3) Hiring Joe Tresey - This is not all Rick's fault in the sense that he wanted to hire Randy Shannon (Cheap UCLA Admins wouldn't pay up) then Rocky Seto (Foolish UCLA fanbase pressured a veto since he was a Trojan) but ended up with his 3rd choice, an out of work college DC Joe Tresey. There's a reason that when Brian Kelly left Cincinatti to go to Notre Dame he decided to leave this guy behind. While his stats were almost impressive with the Bearcats, he was also playing with Kelly's dynamic offense forcing teams to constantly play from behind and allowing his D to just tee off. This year he just absolutely buried the hatchet in Rick with one of the worst and most dissapointing defenses in the entire country, even with NFL talent at every level with DE Datone Jones, LB Jordan Zumwalt, and S Tony Dye the Bruin defense floundered allowing 38, 49, 45, 48, 31, and 50! points in their 6 losses. This guy might be the worst DC in the entire country getting shredded by every decent QB on the schedule, you probably won't see this guy working a Division 1 sideline in quite some time.

So now Rick is done. Taking the sad and lonely walk to Head Coach purgatory... I wish the best for Rick, he's a great Bruin and my god you can tell the man cares! Good luck to him!