Redrum
01-30-2012, 11:27 AM
The good thing about this is taking a little edge off the new regime in Westwood.  Most of the time when a losing coach is replaced, the actual precise description is "a disastrously bad" coach is replaced. Neuheisel's tenure fits that latter description. If a school picks the right guy to be the new coach, often schools get a recruiting bounce simply because the school and location are attractive even if the former coach sucked. We don't want UCLA to get a bounce. We want them to struggle getting up from being knocked flat on their stomachs. Getting Kodi to decommit from a #4 BCS program to the Bruins would have been something that really helped Mora. A little boost for them in California recruiting wars and ammunition for a nice dig at us: Next year Mora to a recruit: 'Oh, so you're looking at Stanford, too. Let me introduce you to Kodi Whitfield. Son of a Stanford legacy but he decommitted from Stanford and now has a really bright future here at UCLA. You two might discuss why he chose UCLA over Stanford..."
UCLA, when they're on an upswing ends up being quite an attractive rival for Stanford in particular. We end up competing for some of the same players. (xref Zumwalt) We want them to struggle. Now WE can say to a recruit " Oh, so you're looking at UCLA, too. Let me introduce you to Kodi Whitfield, who had to make the same choice last year..."  :)
Oh...and Whitfield looks to be a solid receiver who could be quite productive at a position of urgent need. There's that, too. heh-heh.
