In Reply to: UCLA football imploded in 3 weeks, but the Bruins’ problems go way bac posted by mh on September 19, 2025 at 08:56:57
When any organization elevates identity over merit and success, it gets more identity and less success. That's what's happening at Ucla. To wit, the athletics department is financially bankrupt, football has already de-facto downgraded to FCS status and basketball is floundering.
This is a California problem and it's infected Ucla athletics to such a degree as to limit, if not preclude, the Bruins' chances of recovery in football.
If Ucla, somehow, can once again elevate merit over identity, then the program will, not might but will, recover strongly.
I doubt this warped establishment and its dysfunctional culture will recede any time soon. Identity is where the easy money is.
Fans can't stop falling for the new coach fallacy. It's BS, rinse and repeat. Until the identity culture at Ucla athletics break down, the Bruins are doomed to irrelevance in CFB.
Soon, perhaps as early as 2030, the new business economics of CFB will emerge as a forcing function at Ucla. It will force them to choose life for the Bruins football team with a new management structure and merit-based culture, or they will be forced to severely downgrade the program, if not cancel it as it begins losing money.
The second path destroys football. It also destroys the entire intercollegiate athletic program and its menu of sports. Regrettably, and with full knowledge of its dire consequences, Ucla's identity culture is so entrenched and powerful, its likely to choose devastation rather than remit power and affluence.