KARL DORRELL

'Karl Dorrell' (born December 18, 1963 in Alameda, California) is the first black head coach in the history of the UCLA Bruins college football team, a position he took on December 18, 2002. He attended Helix High School in La Mesa, California, where he was a two-time all-league selection and a honorable mention All-America as a senior. He led Helix to the CIF San Diego Section title in 1980 and to second place in 1981. He is married and has two children.

Contents

Playing career

Early coaching career

NFL coaching career

Tenure as UCLA head coach

Criticism

Coaching record

External link

Footnotes

Playing career

Dorrell was one of the most successful wide receivers at UCLA. He had 1,517 receiving yards on 108 receptions in college. He suffered a shoulder injury in 1984 and was granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. He played on a team that won the Rose Bowl in 1983, 1984, and 1986, and that won the Freedom Bowl in 1986. In the 1986 UCLA vs. USC game, UCLA quarterback Matt Stevens faked a kneel as the last play of the first half. He threw a Hail Mary pass, which was tipped into the hands of flanker Karl Dorrell to put the Bruins up 31-0 over the Trojans at the half on the way to a 45-20 victory. The Los Angeles Times labeled this, "Hail Mary, and in your face."^[1]
After the 1986 season he earned his Bachelor's Degree.
He had a brief career as a player in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1987 season, but he was placed on the injured reserve.

Early coaching career

His first job as a coach was in 1988 as a graduate assistant at UCLA. That season the Bruins finished the season with a record of 10 wins, 2 losses; winning the Cotton Bowl.
In 1989 he became a wide receivers coach at Central Florida. In 1990 and 1991 he was the offensive coordinator and receivers coach at Northern Arizona. He again was a wide receivers coach at Arizona State in 1994.
Twice, from 1992 to 1993 and from 1995 to 1998, Dorrell was a wide receivers coach (and an offensive coordinator the second time around) at Colorado. There he was famous for coaching Michael Westbrook.
His last collegiate coaching job before he became the UCLA head coach was at Washington, where he was offensive coordinator and receivers coach in 1999.

NFL coaching career

Dorrell became the receivers coach of the Denver Broncos in 2000, under head coach Mike Shanahan, a position he held for three years until he took up the coaching job at UCLA. While there, he coached players like Rod Smith, a two time selection to the NFL's Pro Bowl and Ed McCaffrey, a one time Pro Bowl selection. With the help of Dorrell, Smith and McCaffrey became only the 2nd wide receiver duo to each catch 100 passes in a single season (2000).

Tenure as UCLA head coach

Karl Dorrell was hired to replace Bob Toledo, who was released at the end of the 2002 regular season. Between Toledo and Dorrell, Ed Kezirian, an athletic department official who oversees the academics for the football team, served as interim coach for the 2002 Las Vegas Bowl. The Bruins won the bowl game over New Mexico 27-13.
Dorrell and UCLA recorded a mark of 6 wins, 7 losses in his first season as head coach in 2003, with an appearance in the Silicon Valley Bowl, and a loss to Fresno State.
In 2004, his second season the team finished with a record of 6 wins, 6 losses and an appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl, with a loss to Wyoming.
In 2005, his third season as head football coach, Dorrell was named Pac-10 co-coach of the year along with USC head coach Pete Carroll. Karl was able get his first win against a ranked opponent. On December 30, 2005 his Bruins defeated the Northwestern Wildcats in the Sun Bowl 50-38, finishing the season with a 10-2 record. At the end of the 2005 season, Dorrell and fellow UCLA coach Ben Howland received pay bonuses for coaching successful seasons.
In 2006, the fourth season, Dorrell guided the Bruins to a 7-6 season (5-4 PAC-10) and a fourth place Pac-10 finish. The greatest victory of perhaps his coaching career was a victory over #2 ranked and Bowl Championship Series bound USC on December 2nd, 2006. This may have been the first signature win for the program under his coaching. The Bruins played in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco against Florida State University Seminoles on December 27, 2006 and lost 44-27.

Criticism

From the time Karl's hiring as head coach was announced, athletic director Dan Guerrero has been the subject of criticism from various columnists^[2], blogs^[3], and sports fans on radio talk shows. Karl's head coaching ability was unproven and it was believed that he was not the right person for the job.³ Karl was brought in at UCLA to clean up a program marred by allegations of NCAA violations in the final years of Bob Toledo's tenure.^[4] In that regard, even his harshest critics concur that he has achieved that goal.³
A losing season in his first year with a bowl game loss to a lower-level program in Fresno State, followed by a 6-6 season and another disappointing bowl game loss to another lower-level program in Wyoming was difficult for UCLA fans accustomed to being competitive for the PAC-10 championship. This feeling was exacerbated as across town, the USC Trojans were having their two year national championship run, which made things even more difficult by the comparison of the two programs.
Many of the Bruins' 10 wins in the 2005 season came in an improbable come-from-behind fashion, thanks largely to the heroics of quarterback Drew Olson and tailback Maurice Jones-Drew in setting new school records for biggest comebacks. The two losses for the season were a blowout loss to a 3-8 Arizona team and a crushing 66-19 defeat by archrival the University of Southern California.
While optimism was high for the 2006 season after the opening season victory over University of Utah, a closer victory than expected against Rice University (a 26-16 victory) and a loss where UCLA was expected to win by 3 against Washington (19-29) caused some fans to raise questions about whether the program was on the right track and also whether Dorrell was qualified to be the coach at UCLA. ³ UCLA played its first game at the University of Notre Dame since the 1960s and was leading 17-13, but the Irish scored a touchdown in the final minute to win.^[5] This loss, while impressive in that UCLA led most of the game on the road against a Top-10 team, led to more criticism of Dorrell as his conservative play-calling was blamed for the loss.
Historically, UCLA and USC coaches have been judged by their record against their rival schools first and foremost. For example, Ted Tollner was fired at USC for not beating Notre Dame and UCLA, despite the fact that he won the PAC-10 championship and Rose Bowl.
While it is questionable whether Dorrell would have been fired after 2006, he ended all doubts about his return for the next year with a 13-9 upset victory over rival USC, which ended the Trojans' hopes for a BCS championship game as well as a 7-game losing streak to the Trojans (and thereby preserving the Bruins' 8-game win streak in the rivalry from 1991-1998 as the longest run in the recent history of the rivalry). The victory also clinched a winning season for UCLA, although the Bruins suffered an embarrassing 27-44 loss to Florida State in the Emerald Bowl. With most of their key players returning, expectations will be high for Dorrell to lead the Bruins into contention for the Pac-10 title in 2007.³
There have been favorable articles, including from his harshest critic Los Angeles Times Sports columnist T. J. Simers. ^[6] On July 10, 2007, Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated opined on the 10 best college head coaches and 5 worst head coaches, and named Karl Dorrell the fifth worst coach based upon his track record.^[7]

Coaching record

'UCLA'

Year	Overall	Bowl Game
2003	6-7	Silicon Valley Bowl (Loss)
2004	6-6	Las Vegas Bowl (Loss)
2005	10-2	Sun Bowl (Win)
2006	7-6	Emerald Bowl (Loss)

External link

★ Karl Dorrell's biography at the UCLA Bruins website

Footnotes

1. Hail Mary, and in Your Face When UCLA's Karl Dorrell Pulls in the Jump Ball, USC Knows That It Is in the Wrong Game - Los Angeles Times. Bill Dwyre. Nov 23, 1986 "Stevens called "Liz No Huddle Max Rebound," a play that would originate from USC's 39-yard line and would end up in the end zone, no time on the clock, the ball in Karl Dorrell's hands and various Trojans strewn about the field, contemplating suicide."
2. T.J. Simers, Los Angeles Times
3. www.bruinsnation.com, www.bruinzone.com, www.dumpdorrell.com, firekarldorrell.blogspot.com
4. UCLA fires football coach Bob Toledo UPI, Dec. 9, 2002
5. Recap of the UCLA Bruins-Notre Dame Fighting Irish game on Saturday October 21, 2006 - NCAA Football TOM COYNE, AP Sports Writer October 21, 2006
6. "The thinker" - LA Times (November 8, 2006); "This isn't the right time to start picking on Dorrell" - T.J. Simers, Los Angeles Times (December 28, 2006)
7. Top to bottom Stewart Mandel. College Football Mailbag, Sports Illustrated, July 10, 2007