In Reply to: I don't see why we couldn't have hired a coach away from posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on April 19, 2024 at 10:46:39
... if he hires your guy from the Mac and 50% of the team hits the portal.
I don't know if you've noticed, but the kids in the "books & ball" culture LIKED being in that culture. They built it, with chip's leadership and direction. They saw the hire of DF as a continuation of that culture. Why wouldn't they? DF was an asst coach for chip for 6 years. He's fully complicit in the way the team was run the last 6 years. If he didn't agree with it, he could have left at any time. I think he left at the end of 2023 because, being in his mid-40s, he needed to advance his career.
I think most of the guys are giving him the botd, they still love Ucla, and they love their teammates, who make up a big chunk of their friend group. But the culture is definitely changing. We'll see if it's for the better or the worse.
Jarmond and Block (who's a big, unseen part of why Ucla fb has the priorities if does) didn't want a mass walkout that would have represented a show of solidarity for chip. They didn't want to make chip a martyr. Right now, the narrative is that chip is the bad guy. That Ucla fb is chip's personal failure. Not that Ucla is a 2nd tier fb program at best, on par with Cal. DF may be a disaster and fired after 3 years. But block will be long gone, and jarmond, too, probably. They'll say, "what could I do? Mean chip left us in the lurch. I had no options."
Meanwhile, block, based on a friend's observations, has NEVER shown up at the chancellor's pregame tent. Young and carnesale would always attend. I think block wants 1st and foremost for Ucla fb to avoid the scandals that the corrupt Michigan fb program has generated. Chip ran exactly the kind of clean program that an Ivy League president would be proud of, much less a west coast public school.