UPDATE II

The Wildcats did everything they could to help the Bruins by turning the ball over five times, but SlickBall failed to produce a single offensive touchdown.

"I want to be your coach" - Rick Neuheisel to Deitrich Riley. Uh, huh... He'll get back to you on that coach.

For now I ask, were any of the Dorrell era losing streaks this calamitous? It's now four 4-game losing streaks this decade, and with a bunch of angry Beavers looking for a victim, the Bruins will need all the claws on one paw to count their losses by this time next week. When will it end?

TUCSON, Ariz.(AP) Nick Foles threw two touchdown passes to Juron Criner , and Arizona overcame five turnovers to defeat UCLA 27-13 on Saturday and keep pace in the Pac-10 race.

Nic Grigsby and Nick Booth each ran for a touchdown for the Wildcats (5-2, 3-1 Pac-10), who remain tied for second place.

Foles had a hand in all of five of Arizona's turnovers. The Pac-10's leading passer threw three interceptions, had a fumble returned for a touchdown and botched a handoff that led to a fumble.

UCLA's defense did everything it could to keep the Bruins (3-4, 0-4) afloat. All 13 UCLA points resulted from turnovers.

UCLA free safety Rahim Moore , the national interception co-leader, picked off his sixth and seventh passes of the season, and strong safety Tony Dye returned a fumble 28 yards for a score.

Bruins coach Rick Neuheisel tried three quarterbacks - starter Kevin Prince , Kevin Craft and Richard Brehaut.

"All I know is at the end of the day if we get served up with either Walker or CHOKER, DG will be responsible for poisoning the atmosphere of UCLA football to such a extent, it may take decade or more to undo the damage" - Nestor, December 18, 2007.

Prophetic words from Dear Leader? Apparently not, because he and "The Nation" failed to see that Rick Neuheisel is who we everyone said he was. Instead of admitting some responsibility for the part "The Nation" took in running Dorrell out of town and cheerleading for Slickball you get this:

"Years of mismanagement and I would submit total neglect from the UCLA administration has our football program the state it is in right now. It is not going to get easier any time soon" - Nestor, December 25, 2009.

Perhaps it also has something to do with years of listening to the rantings and new media "oppo" campaigns of a bunch of ranting lunatics (no need to name names) led by an honest to goodness political hack.

And finally, Nestor issues a warning:

Neuheisel and his coaches need to bring home 6 wins. If he tries to spin anything less than that as a successful season, we are going to LOL at him or anyone else who tries to spin it as success. So anything less than 6 wins this season will the first strike against him in his UCLA career.

If he can't win 7 games next year (and beat Southern Cal) and then follow it up with a title run (a legit one not the BS 10 win season from Dorrell's third year in Westwood) in his fourth season, he will get full fledged Dorrell treatment here on BN. In fact we will subject him to that if it becomes clear (number wise) that he is not getting it done.

Wow, so the old knives are being sharpened already? So much for all the talk of loyalty among Bruins. Members of "The Nation", let the finger pointing begin; but don't forget to point a big fat one at yourselves.

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UPDATE I

After an embarrassing shellacking at the hands of the Cal Bears, Kurt Streeter brings up an "inconvenient truth" regarding Rick Neuheisel.

Look, even in the darkest days of Karl Dorrell, they never had a season-and-a-half stretch this bad. Just two years ago, his job in grave danger, his team injured and undermanned, Dorrell's Bruins played a Cal team as dispirited as the one that just tumbled into the Rose Bowl.

Back then, Cal was coming off a heartbreaking loss that had cost it the national No. 1 ranking. Under Dorrell, the Bruins won, just as they did that year against Oregon. Under Dorrell, true enough, there were some disturbingly ugly games, he was hardly Bill Walsh after all. But there were also a fair share of months ranked in the nation's top 15. And nothing as bad as last season in Provo, 59-0. Genius, let's just say, has its limits.

Sweet revenge for Kurt, who was pilloried without mercy by The Nation in November 2007 for having the temerity to say this:

KURT STREETER - Keep Karl! And keep me posted

He's too staid, too indecisive, in over his head and doesn't win enough.

So goes the tired, old argument against UCLA football Coach Karl Dorrell. An army of you critics wants him gone. Bring in someone else, you say, and the Bruins will morph into a football juggernaut.

Karl Dorrell is right for the Bruins. UCLA should not stoop to the maddening crowd and cut him loose.

Someone should square off against the lot of you who are trying to drive a good coach out of town. You have your websites and blogs. So I'm starting mine. I'm calling it dontdumpdorrell.blogspot.com, and it's on the web now. It is a forum for discussion about the embattled coach.

I'll post this column and respond to your reasoned arguments until we know his fate.

I hope my final post will be hearty congratulations to UCLA administrators for finding their coach of the future -- the guy they have right now.

Here is why Karl Dorrell should stay. He has the kind of smart, honorable character that more coaches need.

And he has done exactly what he was asked to do.

UCLA brought him in before the 2003 season and told him to refashion an unruly, undisciplined team in his own straight-arrow image. Under Dorrell's watch, here is what you no longer see: Bruins in the headlines for run-ins with the law.

He was also told to win. His record could be better, but he's done plenty to keep his job. Two years ago, his team was 10-2, and he shared Pacific 10 Conference coach-of-the-year honors with Pete Carroll. Over time, Dorrell's teams have won nearly six of every 10 games -- pretty much the standard Bruins clip.

This year, as the Bruins' sideline has come to resemble a hospital emergency room, Dorrell's team has five wins and five losses. With two of the toughest games of the year still to play, you critics have him firmly in your cross hairs.

The reaction to Streeter's column was immediate, breathlessly sanctimonious and highly political, with Dear Leader (in a fit of extreme rage) personally accusing Dorrell of "playing the race card." The outrage was so loud, wild, and potentially dangerous that it prompted Streeter to follow up with this headline:

KURT STREETER - Race issue can't, and shouldn't, be avoided

'Mr. Streeter, you are a vile demagogue and a self-pitying bigot."

It was one of the tamer notes to grace my inbox. Anonymous, of course, it arrived after I wrote two weeks ago that Karl Dorrell should keep his job. I added that, for some, race plays a part in their angry criticism of the UCLA football coach.

Using rhetoric often too ugly to print, scores said that I coddled Dorrell and that I "played the race card" because he is black -- and so am I. Scores more said that I should be embarrassed, ashamed, silenced or fired for having the nerve to mention race.

Dorrell is one of only six African Americans among the 119 head coaches in major college football.

Since Nov. 18, when my column was published, the hyperventilating has not stopped, mostly because of six paragraphs I wrote about race at the end of my column. Here is the conclusion I draw: Too many of us are far too scared of the very mention of race. It jangles the nerves and destroys common sense.

Not surprisingly, the vile accusations did their damage at a very nervous Morgan Center, forcing Karl Dorrell to issue the following statement:

Nov. 21, 2007

"This statement is to clarify issues arising from an article written about me this past Sunday. During the interview, the reporter asked a question regarding the issue of race in today's college coaching environment. I told the reporter that there still exist issues in this profession, with qualified minority candidates not receiving college head coaching opportunities. In college football, six out of 119 Division IA head coaches are African American. This was the context in which the subject was addressed during the interview.

"My comments regarding race issues were expressed in a general sense, and clearly not as an indictment about my experience at UCLA. I have seen a lot of issues in this profession over the last 20 years, but I have not had to deal with any such concerns during my time at UCLA."

Today there's a couple of guys, one in Miami and another in Las Cruces, that realize how good life can be when you don't work at UCLA.

Finally, Streeter indulged in a little irony today when he said:

I'm on record saying Neuheisel -- any major college football coach, really -- should start off with an eight-year contract and be allowed to stick it through; baring an unparalleled meltdown or serious trouble with the NCAA police.

Yeap, let it all hang out Kurt. Six more years of Slick Rick? Revenge is oh so sweet.

On deck: Dan Guerrero; and what's that ticking sound?

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Bumped...P

It's mid-October and we are quickly learning the talent and tendencies of our Pac-10 and BCS competitors. After watching the Oregon-UCLA game yesterday, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Dan Guerrero on behalf of all Trojans, Ducks, Trees and the rest of the Pac-10, for paying homage to the BruinsNation and hiring Slick Rick Neuheisel instead of DeWayne Walker as head football coach.

The "dream team" of Walker and Chow was given a lot of consideration by DG, and supported enthusiastically by a legion of smart Bruins. Unfortunately for the Bruins the concept ran into a wall of opposition and ridicule from the BN; so much so that it received the derisive moniker "CHOKER" from the implacable BNer in chief, in a post with the ominous title: "CHOKER or Walker = No 3rd Chance For Dan Guerrero"

Again right now I am not sure who to believe. But it is hard not to miss the clamor for CHOKER or Walker on other boards. Yes, the morons over at message boards, you know the tools who have been supporting Dorrell all these years, the same cheese eating surrender monkeys who were celebrating a loss against Southern Cal, as a "true moral victory,"a are already going gaga over either CHOKER or Walker.

and here

All I know is at the end of the day if we get served up with either Walker or CHOKER, DG will be responsible for poisoning the atmosphere of UCLA football to such a extent, it may take decade or more to undo the damage.

with the full support of his clamoring minions.

Anyhow, my point in all this is to specifically point out who the Dorrellistas and Choker supporters are. Their support for Walker and Walker/Chow is as ardent as their support for Dorrell was. Go to their site now and count up all the posts that praise Walker. It's disgusting. My fellow Bruins, THIS is why we must continue the good fight that Nestor has implored us to fight. This is why we must not let up.

Wish granted BN, now the Bruins are more dysfunctional than Madden on Windows 95.

Perhaps I needn't have fearded, but at the time "CHOKER" frightened the hell out of me, and I wasn't alone. DeWayne Walker is a Trojan, a Pete Carroll disciple and friend. Few people can recruit like Walker, and he has uncanny ability to put steel in the backs of young men while filling their hears with pride. The scariest part is that it almost happened, it would have been a nightmare, but lucky for us a higher power intervened.

When Slick took over he tried to retain Walker as DC, but DW saw through the shtick. Disrespected and reading the writing on the wall, DW moved to greener pastures at NMSU; he has the Aggies (3-3) competing for the first time in ages. It was a good move for him. In the meantime at UCLA, Norm Chow is wasting away under Slick's thumb, primed to be the fall-guy. You can see that train coming a mile away.

The relentless hue and cry at the end of the Dorrell era finally got to Dan Guerrero and we all know what happened. You could say now that the BN should have been more careful about what they campaigned for. On January 15th, 2008, SMQ gave us this take on the BN's tactics

One of the really entertaining things about UCLA partisans Bruins Nation is how staunchly on-message it is at all times. It’s apparent some of its founders have political backgrounds. When the message was "Fire Karl Dorrell," no opportunity was missed, no sentence was written that might weaken the campaign. Not even after a 26-point win. Not even if it was November and L.A. could still potentially make the Rose Bowl. Nothing could stand in BN’s path.

Now that the message is "Head Coach Richard Neuheisel Is the Best CEO in America," the tone of the rhetoric has changed completely –– it’s all positive, all the time –– but the commitment to the message is as staunch as ever.

Two days later, TKK at Dawg Sports made the following prophetic comment

The Bruin faithful are happy with the hire, so I am happy for them. At any other N.C.A.A. institution, the unmistakable downward trajectory of Coach Neuheisel's teams would cause me to view this as an unqualifiedly bad hire, but, at U.C.L.A., bringing home the prodigal son who maybe, just maybe, has learned his lesson could be the shrewdest move the Bruins have made in a generation, making the Battle of Los Angeles instantly more competitive and undeniably more intriguing. My gut instinct is that Coach Neuheisel will put the "ruin" back in "Bruin," but what I lack in faith I make up for in hope where the new U.C.L.A. skipper is concerned.

In June of last year SMQ chimed in again sparking yet another firestorm. The BN's response through all of this is that the skeptics are tools, haters, crazy, bitter and lazy. So what else is new?

Ironically, it is quite possible that the most prophetic comment came from Nestor himself, when he said: "DG will be responsible for poisoning the atmosphere of UCLA football to such a extent, it may take decade or more to undo the damage." If he's right, I hope the Bruins are ready to hold out until 2019. Will the BN bare his share of the responsibility? Will DG get that third chance?