In Reply to: Re: Who of those guys could have been developed much better? posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on March 22, 2025 at 22:46:00
First off, while he did land some modest talent, recruiting under Dorrell took a HUGE step backwards from where it had historically been at UCLA. This is an objective fact. And then it got to the point where Dorrell in a fashion not entirely unlike the focus of recruiting under Chip, simply stopped even trying to recruit high level talent where they'd have to compete with other programs to land them. The classes he brought in were routinely characterized as being full of potential diamonds in the rough, which is euphemism for not very talented. And the vast majority of those uncut diamonds NEVER showed much sparkle. I watched every game of Dorrell's tenure and except for one anomalous season, which itself was largely a product of smoke and mirrors hiding MAJOR deficiencies until it was fully exposed and all collapsed at the end, the lack of talent on the roster was painfully obvious.