In Reply to: When did you know something was not right with Chip? posted by TJJ on February 10, 2024 at 17:22:56
I was definitely for the Chip hire. He just wasn’t my first choice. My first choice was Scott Frost (how’d that work out). I did write a long post when he was hired that in essence said it’s very hard to be an innovator twice and that everyone had caught up to and surpassed the Blur. He innovated at Oregon a lot, but I follow the NFC East closely and he caused chaos there and definitely seen as a poor head coach. He pushed out Roseman (who they brought back and is now thought of as a personnel guru). Eagles fans HATED him. Lots of “racism”’charges and his style was not taken kindly to by a lot of his players.
The first thing that should have sent flares in the sky is why he chose UCLA over Florida, but hey we were ecstatic to get the Top guy on the market. Although it’s common now, a ton of kids left when Chip was hired, moreso than normal. But we knew this was a bad hire after 2 years for sure. He continued to pile up the worst seasons in history and we lost to a lot of really bad teams. Then we just stopped recruiting and I knew it was over.
The problem was everything was shrouded by Covid. How could we fire him when the seasons (at least in the Pac) were so weird. Regardless it was apparent that Chip couldn’t recruit. When you can’t recruit it’s over. It’s the most important thing a coach can do. There are very few head coaches that make a difference in X and o. Chip was able to do that in Oregon (he was also busted for recruiting violations) but he was anything but innovative here.
Outside of the lack of recruiting and on the field performance what irritated me most was the “Books and Ball” moniker. It was just an excuse to not recruit top athletes and justify it by saying, we may not beat anyone on the field, but we know our Rousseau. The reality is that Stanford is that place or the Ivy League. Of course, the reality is that 95%+ of the recruits would never be admitted as a general applicant. And that’s fine. It was just an excuse to justify poor and lazy recruiting. I don’t understand why people cannot compartmentalize a 100 kids on campus who’s main focus in football. UCLA has an enrollment of 45k. It’s ok to have 100 kids who’s main job is to play ball. That’s a literal drop in the pool. It doesn’t impact your diploma adversely. It doesn’t diminish the institution. It’s not even a rounding error.