OT-Why is UCLA so Bad?

The obvious explanatations seem to be that they've hired a couple of atrocious coaches (I know Neuheisel is a name but every team he's ever coached has gotten worse during his tenure), and the fact that USC has been completely dominating southern California recruiting.  

Also, when I opened this thread I assumed it was going to be about the basketball team.  It cannot be fun to be a UCLA fan right now...

They don't pay as much as USC.

than being a USC whipping boy.

I was wondering the same thing about Oregon State, Colorado, among others.

... but I recall reading somewhere that UCLA's President/Board keep the pursestrings very, very tight on any facilities upgrades in the athletic dept and especially so for football.  As a result, they simply don't have the kind of facilities to compete in recruiting, and if you can't compete in recruiting, you can't compete, period. 

They share a city with USC. Although, now that I think about it, two historical powerhouses can share the same geographic area and win year in and year out. Just take the instance of Michigan and Little Br..... ohh... wait...

With the lack of investment in facilities and a higher academic standard, UCLA is at a distinct disadvange against some other schools, like USC. 

Illinois is another school that seems like it should be able to be successful in football but has struggled.

In addition to the facilities, I hear that they are really cheap in hiring coaching staff. They ask coordinators and position coaches to work for less than market rate for big conference schools. Factor in the higher cost of living around that area, and it isn't an attractive spot for elite coaches.

Many good reasons have been listed, but hiring a good coach has been the main issue.  Back when they had Pepper Rodgers, Dick Vermeil and then Terry Donahue as head coach, they won a lot of games.

1. UCLA recruiting the last two years has really sucked 2010 (No. 56) and 2012 (No. 41ish).

2. Injuries - there's not a team aside from maybe Purdue that has had more misfortune in injuries. Also attrition has been an issue.

Regarding item 1, UCLA is talented. They had the No. 8 ranked class in 2010, the No. 5 ranked class in 2009 and No. 10 ranked class in 2008.

USC remains the dominant team on the recruiting side in southern California.

1. The name.  Sure there was a time when UCLA attracted recruits like Troy Aikman, but USC has always been the region's brand name.  It's like Oklahoma State and Oklahoma, or Michigan and Sparty: sure, Little Brother can be good at times, but Big Brother's always going to have that cachet.  It's relatively harder for UCLA to attract national attention and recruits than USC.

2. The facilities.  They are not good.  Across town, USC's are fantastic.  Oregon's are fantastic. Arizona and Arizona State's are better.  

3. A very average approach to hiring (average) coaches.  Both Toledo (10-2 in 1997 and 1998) and Dorrell (10-2 in 2005) had some good seasons, but had a lot of 7-6, 6-6 seasons as well.  That makes them pretty average for the Pac-10, same as Oregon State, Arizona State or Arizona over that period.  Neuheisel was just bad. 

Is Jim Mora going to be Pete Carroll or Bill Callahan?  I'm guessing the latter, based on history.  

Everything negative that's been said about UCLA should also apply to Cal, yet Cal has been much better over the past 10 to 15 years than UCLA.  In fact, I would think UCLA has easier admissions and more tradition.

The difference has to be in the coaches they've hired.

Having gone to both schools (and being born and raised in LA), I have always said that the biggest issue with UCLA is the fact that their stadium is 20 miles away from campus. This has a profound ripple effect in that it takes loads of effort for students to get to games and greatly diminishes the gameday experience compared to a school like UM. The result is an apathetic fan base and virtually zero buzz about the program among the students or otherwise. I have often wondered about recruits visiting and going to campus and then sitting in traffic for an hour plus just to see the stadium--that can't help to lure elite talent. On top of everything else, most of their games are on local Fox Sports channels, usually not even broadcast in HD. Football simply isn't a priority, and it should be. They missed their opportunity to strike while USC should have been down, but they let USC dominate, even with one hand tied behind their back. Very sad.

I live in LA so I am little familiar with the territory. There are many reasons why Div I athletes should flock to its campus: (a) you have beautiful weather almost the entire year; (b) UCLA has a beautiful campus nestled in one of the nicest parts of LA (it actually has a college town feel); (c) academically it is one of the best schools in California and the entire country (Berkeley and Stanford are ranked slightly higher, and I am not counting Cal Tech because I am pretty sure that they do not have varsity football/basketball, etc.); (d) lots of beautiful ladies for the guys; (e) California is one of the big high school football states (along with Florida, Texas, Ohio) that produces a ton of D-I talent. What kid wouldn't want to play there? I am guessing that main reason is that UCLA does not have much of a tradition when it comes to football and is not known as a NFL factory. UCLA sort of lives in the shadow of USC when it comes to football, at least. The only reason why, imo, is USC's history but, other than that, imo UCLA is much more attractive for the reasons listed above. USC is in one of the worst neighborhoods in LA and I the campus itself is nowhere as nice as UCLA's.

USC's dominace has definitely hurt, but UCLA has also failed to bring in the guys who don't go to SC.  I can think of a number of high profile kids out of southern California who passed on the Trojans, but none of them became Bruins.  Vontaze Burfict went to ASU, Desean Jackson went to Cal, Donovon Warren went to Michigan, DeAnthony Thomas went to Oregon, Darrell Scott went to Colorado.

They also haven't added any high profile players I can think of from outside of the area, at a time when Oregon is bringing in guys like LeMichael James from Texas, Stanford has recruited well nationally, and USC has added a ton of out of state talent (Mike Williams was from FL, Jarrett and Cushing were from NJ, McKnight was from LA, LenDale White was from CO, Fred Davis was from OH, Nick Perry and RoJo from MI, etc.).  This wasn't always the case when guys like Freddie Mitchell (FL), Cade McNown (OR), and Skip Hicks (TX) were leading UCLA to ten win seasons.

I don't think the stadium distance really factors into the ability to land recruits (the issue has always existed but UCLA didn't have the same problem in the past).  But poor facilities and poor coaching hires (Karl Dorrell?) at a time when schools like Oregon, Cal, and Stanford have had some of their most successful teams ever and USC has dominated on the field while going through significant upgrades off the field (actually higher than UCLA in USNEWS rankings now, continue to develop the area surrounding the campus and push back the more unsavory adjoining neighborhoods etc.) have doomed them to also ran status the last decade or so.

Along with what everyone said about the administration, they have really become just a basketball school. 

They also just hired Jim L. Mora Jr. who has flamed at every place he has been in the nfl.  With basically no college coaching experience who knows if he can actually recruit.  Maybe hiring a coach who did poorly in the NFL is a great plan it kind of worked out for USC. 

LA fans are obnoxious bandwagoners and fair weather fans.  There is nothing more that I want to see than UCLA beat USC, but it seems like that might not happen anytime soon. 

The coaching is one issue, but they also don't enjoy a monopoly on the LA scene (or at least a shared one with USC) that they probably had 10-15 years ago.  Yes, national programs like UM, OSU, Texas, ND, and MSU always recruited there to various degrees, but now you have kids going to Utah, Boise St., etc. that used to stick closer to home.  So that has to be part of it. 

But honestly, not every big-name school is going to be good at every sport, and UCLA was always viewed as a basketball school to me, and I'm guessing that is a sentiment shared by others.  And yes, I know that the UCLA president doesn't like to spend on facilities, support big-time sports, etc. - that's probably true at more schools than you think, yet at least some of them probably field better teams than UCLA does.

All these responses and no one wants to blame on it that weird blue color of their jerseys yet?

It basically comes down to money and effort.

My wife works at UCLA and I was there for many years as a grad student and later faculty (I'm now at USC so I also have some contrast). 

First of all, the entire UC system is a mess right now with the California state budget in crisis and they have been bleeding quality faculty and staff at every level, as people find other places to work instead of taking huge pay cuts or furloughs.   I can't imagine that they are going to have an easy time coming up with the increased salaries necessary for top level coaches and assistants in the current budgetary climate. 

Second, the culture at UCLA is pretty weak when it comes to football.  Coming from UM I was just totally disappointed at going to football games when I arrived at UCLA... you have to drive an hour plus to get to Pasadena crumbling Rose Bowl with empty seats.  The student body did not seem to care very much about the team... basketball was much more important to them. 

Most of the top schools have new state-of-the-art facilities.  UCLA has nothing to offer in that regard, nor are they any plans for it.    USC is putting a whole new building up right down the street from me for football, and the whole culture here is completely obsessed with it and devoted to it.   

UCLA is just not making football a priority.  

I think battling USC in recruiting is way overblown. There are a ton of talent in Southern California (not to mention even more that would like to go there) and USC can only take 25 or so a year. Of the top 30 players in CA (all blue chips, 13 are committed to non-USC schools, 11 are uncommitted, and only one is committed to UCLA. So it's not that UCLA can't compete with USC for recruits, it's that UCLA can't compete with any of the teams recruiting CA. Cal, ND, and Oregon are all out-recruiting UCLA in California, and other schools like Michigan, Oklahoma and others are doing just as well.

In addition to all that, it's what others have said: No $$$ support for facilities or coaches and a stadium that's an hour drive away from campus are all things keeping UCLA from being good.