In Reply to: No, 2007 posted by TJJ on September 29, 2025 at 12:37:40
... that Ucla was considering a guy who was only a special teams coach in the nfl at the time. That dg's preference was Riley, Harbaugh (and I guess Robinson)... and that kd was at the bottom. But that Ucla admin overruled him.
But I can't find any documentation of that, and he was considered more fully in 2008.
I thought this was interesting/ funny:
John Harbaugh Discusses His Run At The UCLA Football Gig In 2008
By
Carlos Sandoval
|
Feb 4, 2013animal
Hey, did someone leave this huge chunk of trophy laying around here? Jerry Lai-USA TODAY SportsIn case you’ve been living under a rock, the Baltimore Ravens won Super Bowl XLII over the San Francisco 49ers. For the past two weeks, the tilt was touted as a match-up between brothers, both of whom had earned themselves the distinction of elite coaches in their respective conferences.
One of those brothers is Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, Harbaugh, if you recall, was once strongly considered for the UCLA job back in 2008.Even before John’s Super Bowl berth, UCLA fans understood that the Bruins’ passing-up of Harbaugh for Rick Neuheisel was a massive screw-up. Perhaps not at the time, but after Neuheisel’s third year — which saw Harbaugh reach the AFC championship game once already — the writing was on the wall: UCLA blew it.
Recently, he sat down to talk about that moment, via CBS Sports:
"All that from someone nobody would hire as a head coach … until, that is, Baltimore took the leap.“I came in No. 2 for the UCLA job,” Harbaugh said, “but they gave it to Rick Neuheisel. I got close on a couple of other job [openings], but with other jobs you couldn’t even get an interview. It was funny because the UCLA thing didn’t work out, but it wasn’t a great fit for us. It would’ve been a great thing, but then a week later [Ravens GM] Ozzie [Newsome] calls about the Ravens.“To me, it goes to show you that in life you just can’t look at it like you’ve got to push things professionally or whatever. God’s got plans and things — that’s why I keep saying it; at least that’s my experience — beyond your own ability to even dream or imagine what could happen. I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation, in all honesty.”"
JH says "Ucla wasn't a great fit for us"... but we're always told that Ucla is a TOP TEN JOB or whatever. But nobody really good ever seems to want the job.