UCLA Names Long’s Replacement

Bob Toledo took time out from Sunday’s practice for the Cotton Bowl to announce a reunion.

Nick Aliotti will become UCLA’s defensive coordinator after the Bruins play Texas A&M; on Thursday.

“We’re very good friends,” Toledo said. “We’ve been friends for years. We were on the same staff at the University of Oregon.”

Aliotti, who has coached the St. Louis Rams’ linebackers for three seasons, replaces Rocky Long, who is leaving UCLA to become the coach at New Mexico. Aliotti left Oregon for the Rams when then-Duck coach Rich Brooks became the boss in St. Louis. When Brooks was fired last season, former UCLA coach Dick Vermeil came to St. Louis and retained Aliotti.

“Dick Vermeil is a good man, and I’ve enjoyed working with Dick in St. Louis,” Aliotti said. “I hate to leave there, but this is an opportunity to be a coordinator again, to run my own show. And my heart, I think, leans toward college football.”

Aliotti, 43, is no stranger to Southern California, having recruited the area while at Oregon. He also was the Ducks’ defensive coordinator when they played Penn State in the 1994 Rose Bowl.

He played at UC Davis when USC Coach Paul Hackett was an assistant there.

“We’re going to continue to do the same types of things,” Toledo said. “We’re going to blitz and play man-to-man and continue to get after them. We’ll play some zone like we did this year, but it will be an aggressive style of attacking defense.”

That defense involved blitzing people on every play, and it resulted in a turnover margin of plus-1.82, second in the nation.

“I’m an aggressive guy,” Aliotti said. “I’m not Rocky. I like to win first down. If you can win with an eight-man front and not have to sell out the whole shop, that’s good.

“We both like to blitz, and we both like man-to-man coverage. Rocky likes to blitz on every down. I’m going to blitz a lot, though maybe not that much.”

Aliotti is expected to be on hand for a recruiting weekend Jan. 9-11, then make the move to UCLA a week later.