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Is Norm Chow Headed to UCLA?

By Jimmy Morris

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There are all kinds of rumors floating around that Norm Chow has been offered the UCLA head coaching job. Bruins Nation, which is your SB Nation home for all things UCLA, is not to excited about the prospect of having Chow as their coach:
Moreover, is there any evidence of Chow being a dynamic recruiter or personality, who would inject enthusiasm into our underachieving program? From what I have heard from friends who follow the Stanford football program very closely, this guy couldn't even sell himself in a set up that was supposed to be a slam dunk from him. Yeah, I get that Stanford made the wrong choice in Walt Harris. Yet, it was still Chow who completely "bombed" the interview when he had his chance. And that wasn't last time he bombed a hiring process. He wasn't even contacted by NC State when that job opened up last season. And reportedly ASU interviewed him, but went with Erickson. So all on a sudden we are supposed to be okay with UCLA taking a flier on this guy who has never led a team either in the NFL or in the pros?
It is always a red flag to me when guys have interviewed at a bunch of different places but have never gotten a job. It is an even bigger red flag when it comes to Chow because, as mentioned above, he had an interview at Stanford, which should have been a slam dunk, and they didn't go with him, and NC State didn't even call him. There has to be a reason no one has given them a shot. I have the same feelings about Mike Leach, the head coach at Texas Tech. Every year he gets an interview from a school, but he never gets a job. There has to be a reason for that.

Last season Chow interviewed for the Arizona State head coaching job and the Arizona Cardinals head coaching job. I said in both instances that I hoped he would not leave because it would hurt Vince's development. I am no longer convinced that Chow leaving would hurt Vince.

Chow came in with the repuation for being a quarterback guru. He had developed guys like Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers and Matt Leinart in his time in college. That is an impressive list, but I am not sure that it translates to being the right guy for Vince. I have gotten the feeling this year that Chow is trying to make Vince fit his system instead of changing his system to Vince's strengths. Vince wasn't picked #3 overall because of his great pocket passing ability. He was picked there because of his play making ability. That is wasted pick if you don't take advantage of those abilities.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this. If Chow ends up with that job, he will have to decide if he is going to go right away, or stay to coach the rest of the season. When Charlie Weiss was hired at Notre Dame, he coached for the Patriots on Sundays but did recruiting stuff for Notre Dame during the week. Maybe he should have just gone on to Notre Dame. If Chow were to leave now, the Titans would probably just promote someone from in house. Most likely it would be quarterback's coach Craig Johnson. After the season they would have to decide if they were going to stick with Johnson or hire someone else.

Give me your thoughts on all of this.

Update [2007-12-12 19:58:14 by Jimmy]:Jim Wyatt is now reporting that Chow will meet with UCLA some time this weekend. I hope the meeting isn't scheduled for Saturday before the game. That seems like it would be a huge distraction to a team fighting for it's playoff life.

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