There is no reason anyone should be interested in this, but I gotta get it off my chest. I know, I'm pissin' in the wind.
When Chip was coach, I had finally resigned myself to being a fan of a perpetually +/- .500 team that had a "books and ball." I convinced myself that Chip's abysmal recruiting was largely driven by Jarmond, and the types of player Jarmond wanted representing UCLA. It wasn't strictly a Chip thing. My beef with Chip was 1) his thinking that it would be ok to implode the program when he arrived; 2) his active antagonistic stance about building the fan base; 3) his hanging onto his buddy, the sh*t DC Santa Clause for so long.
Re: 1) Chip killed UCLA football, like a pig in an abatoire. His implosion of the team played a big role in us losing the UA deal, and the horrible terms of the eventual settlement. And, the massive hemorrhaging of money occasioned thereby will haunt us for a long long time.
2) In the the NIL era, you cannot have a coach like Kelly. Cash is King. Chip was an anti-promoter. With intention, he drove money away. He will never be a college HC again. Even if Day leaves OSU, Chip will never be the face of any program ever again. I underestimated the effect of NIL when I was thinking I could live with "books and ball."
Make no mistake, short of having a coach that assaulted a player, Kelly was the worst coaching hire in UCLA history. Hanging onto him for so long was the second worst decision. His implosion of the team when he was hired will have an effect that will last more than a decade at the least.
Once Chip was fired, I strongly advocated that we hire away a HFC with a good track record from another school. I posted a list of 8 guys, each of which made less than what Chip made. Several of which made less than what CDF is getting.
To my dismay, we did the ultimate UCLA thing, and hired a UCLA guy that was not a head coach. Only this time we went for a guy whose top experience was as a position coach. Amazing.
I posited with Chip that Jarmond was restricting him. I posited during the coaching search that if UCLA did the UCLA thing, a likely motivator was that they would be bringing in a guy that was just happy to be here, was familiar with the restrictions, and was willing to live with them. Nothing has happened to change my opinion. If it was Chip, not Jarmond, that was driving our bizarre recruiting, then we should expect a big change in our recruiting. I don't expect a change. Chip's decimation of our fanbase will mask the restrictions in the NIL era. But, imo, they are still there.
So, while I was adamantly opposed to CDF's hire, I support him as a huge DF fan. And, a big UCLA fan. I want him to succeed and will be giving him the benefit of the doubt. That doesn't mean I wanted him hired.
There, I got it off my chest.