Job Without Rival Is Just Across Town

As we watch the college football-coaching carousel turn, with prized positions at schools such as USC and Alabama hanging out there like brass rings, one point is consistently overlooked.

The best job in the business is already taken. Bob Toledo has it.

The UCLA football coach gets to live in a big city with great weather, in the midst of a top-notch talent pool of prep players. He can attract enough recruits to make an occasional run at the national championship. And he can do all of this without the administration and alumni constantly on his back, ready to run him out of town every time an offensive lineman gets called for a false start.

It’s the ideal combination of limitless upside and minimal pressure.

Don’t expect the position to become open any time soon, either. With a 6-5 record this year and one of the nation’s top recruiting classes on the way, Toledo isn’t going anywhere.

Even with a two-year record of 10-12, a two-game losing streak against USC and a defense that has held only one opponent--Boise State--to fewer than 16 points in the last three seasons, coaching at UCLA always means getting a chance to see the sun shine another day.

A trip to the Rose Bowl now and then, consistent victories over the Trojans, and you’re set for life.

That’s the way it worked for Toledo’s predecessor, Terry Donahue, during his 20-year stay in Westwood.

Even though Donahue’s only bowl victory in his last seven seasons was a lackluster 6-3 affair against Illinois in the 1991 Hancock Bowl, he got to dictate the terms of his departure. He left when he wanted to, went where he wanted to--a spot in the CBS announcers’ booth--and didn’t have to flee before a pack of angry boosters.

That’s a lot of stability in a world in which even Maryland has changed coaches twice since 1996.

At UCLA, they save the venom for the basketball coach. (Attention Steve Lavin: If you’re going to lose to other California schools, at least let it happen in Pacific-10 Conference play.)

At USC, if coaches don’t win, they’re gone. There’s no time to ride out the inevitable rough stages. So while the Bruins have had only two coaches since 1976, the Trojans are looking for their fifth since 1986.

And at USC, coaches must live up to yesterday’s standards while living in today’s environment.

“The school is a different place,” said John Robinson, who coached the Trojans to their last national championship in 1978. “The goals are different, the visions of what they want to achieve are different than what they were.

“A lot of people understand that, and some don’t.”

There are those old-era Trojans who think the program can return to its glory years.

“I don’t have any doubt,” said former safety Mike Sanford, who also was an assistant coach at USC during each of Robinson’s two stints as coach.

“Some of it has to do with the continuity of the situation,” said Sanford, currently coaching the San Diego Chargers’ wide receivers.

“I played under John McKay for three years and he had been there for a long time and built the program up. Then when John Robinson took over, he continued it and started recruiting a little bit more nationally.

“The continuity in the ‘70s--late ‘60s, ‘70s--had a lot to do with why USC was in the situation they were in. The thing that has been a problem recently has been the lack of continuity. Every time you change coaches, it’s tough on that recruiting class.”

Recruiting is what it’s all about. And the USC tradition still carries some weight for high school players, according to Allen Wallace, publisher of Superprep recruiting magazine.

“I think they can still throw their name around, in terms of interesting recruits,” Wallace said. “That’s what they’ve been living on for a while now. I don’t think it’s been their facilities. It certainly hasn’t been their coaching.”

The consensus is that USC must get this hire right or the program will plunge even deeper, perhaps irreversibly deeper.

How many coaches would want to accept that pressure? How many want to walk into a situation of high expectations and low tolerance?

Right now, the most realistic goal for an incoming coach at USC would be to emulate Ohio State’s John Cooper. There’s a guy at a traditional football powerhouse who hasn’t delivered, yet still keeps his job.

Apparently, a 2-10-1 record against Michigan and only one Rose Bowl appearance in 13 years aren’t enough to get you fired in Columbus anymore. He used to have a permanent place on the “Coaches on the Hot Seat” list. Now everyone in Columbus seems resigned to his lasting the remaining three years of his contract. It has gotten to the point that losing to Michigan is an accepted part of autumn, like leaves falling.

If a USC coach could have that kind of support from the administration, even when the alumni are hysterical, it would be a more appealing position. Instead, it has become a job that can’t automatically command its first choice anymore. Neither can Alabama’s.

UCLA, trying to replace Donahue, was turned down by Gary Barnett when he was at his peak, taking Northwestern to the Rose Bowl. But he also resisted overtures from Notre Dame, Georgia and Texas that year. Now he’s taking his lumps at Colorado.

And Bob Toledo is sitting pretty at UCLA, where the seat gets hot only if you drag it outside into the sunshine.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.

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