A Tale of Two Absent Coaches

With apologies to Dickens, the Las Vegas Bowl will swirl with UCLA spirits past, present and future.

A victory would be a hearty welcome for a new boss and a gift of holiday cheer to a despondent former one.

Win or lose, a new chapter in UCLA football will be born and the remnants of a bygone era will be buried.

UCLA (7-5) and New Mexico (7-6) expect to draw only 18,000 at Sam Boyd Stadium, but the presence of two television viewers who represent yesterday and tomorrow will be felt.

Bob Toledo, the coach for seven seasons before getting fired Dec. 9, will watch from his home in Westlake Village. The Bruins will be coached by his staff and they will run his offense.

His former team can pay him tribute by winning.

“I’d like to do that for him,” senior linebacker Marcus Reese said. “He recruited all of us and coached us well.”

Karl Dorrell, hired Dec. 18 to lift UCLA to more prestigious postseason games than this, will watch from his home in Englewood, Colo. The Bruins belong to him beginning Thursday, and he will bring in his own staff, and his own offense.

His future team can pay him homage by winning.

“Everybody knows he will be watching,” tailback Tyler Ebell said. “One game doesn’t dictate your career, but it would give all of us a positive way to start off with the new coach.”

Along with the first impressions, there will be last hurrahs. It’s the final UCLA game for 13 seniors and probably the last for eight assistant coaches.

“We’re waking up on Christmas Day and playing football,” senior tight end Mike Seidman said. “To me, that’s fun. That should be a celebration.”

Playing the unlikely role of Scrooge could be Rocky Long, the plain-speaking, personable New Mexico coach of five seasons. His Lobos are capable of an upset.

The former UCLA defensive coordinator and close friend of Toledo employs an unusual defense using five backs who line up 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage until the quarterback begins calling signals. Just before the snap one or more of the backs blitz or step up and stuff the run.

New Mexico’s defense was among the top 20 in the nation in 2001 and 2000. This season, the Lobos have 120 tackles for loss.

Long’s offense is equally bizarre, though less effective. The Lobos run everything from the fly series -- where a receiver goes in motion and becomes a tailback -- to the archaic single wing. The quarterback draw is a big part of the arsenal.

So is a formation called the Daffy Duck -- the tackles and ends split wide to each side and a flanker lines up behind them. Quarterback Casey Kelly counts the defensive players who remain in their normal positions and determines the play at the line of scrimmage.

If defenders leave their posts and follow the tackles and ends, a running play is called. If defenders stay put, Kelly throws to one of the flankers.

“The reason they do so much is to keep the defense on the drawing board in the first quarter,” Reese said. “But we’ve prepared for every one of their formations.”

Although it’s been a month since the Lobos last played and they rank No. 100 in offense, Long claims no new tricks were added for today.

“I think we used the whole bag,” he said. “We were having so much trouble early in the season we brought out a million things just to score a touchdown.”

New Mexico, undersized and barely over .500, is familiar with getting no respect. But five victories in their last seven games gave the Lobos second place in the Mountain West Conference.

The Lobos have inspiration as well as momentum. Long regaled them with the tale of Mountain West cohort Utah defeating USC in last year’s Las Vegas Bowl.

So they believe they can win, despite making only their second bowl appearance in 41 years. They played in the Insight.com bowl in 1997. They lost to Arizona, but just getting there was an achievement of such magnitude that it launched Coach Dennis Franchione to three lucrative jobs in the next five years.

New Mexico’s last postseason victory came in 1961 against Western Michigan in the short-lived Aviation Bowl in a Dayton, Ohio, snowstorm with 4,000 people in the stands.

UCLA’s bowl tradition of late isn’t much more impressive. The Bruins spurned the Humanitarian Bowl last season, lost in the Sun Bowl in 2000 and lost in the Rose Bowl in 1998.

A victory today wouldn’t exactly qualify as a return to glory, but it would provide a springboard into the Dorrell era.

“I think a win really sets up the off-season program,” interim Coach Ed Kezirian said. “It builds momentum and creates enthusiasm.”

Kezirian knows zeal. A former Bruin player and assistant who has been an academic advisor the last 10 years, he is best known for waving a white towel above his head during games to get players and fans fired up.

“I’ll leave the towel in the locker room,” he said. “I’ll wear a headset and manage the game.”

Offensive coordinator Kelly Skipper, who always deferred to Toledo in the past, will call plays. Phil Snow, as usual, is in charge of the defense.

Drew Olson will play the first quarter at quarterback and Matt Moore will play the second. Kezirian and quarterbacks coach John Pearce will decide at halftime which of the two freshmen to go with in the third quarter; the other will play the fourth.

“They are so even, they both deserve a chance to compete,” Pearce said. “They have bright futures here.”

So do the rest of the large number of freshmen, sophomores and juniors who made a strong contribution this season. The game for them is a bridge between eras, and when it is over their future lies with Dorrell.

The motivation is different for the seniors and assistant coaches. Their UCLA careers end today, and their futures lie elsewhere.

“We will approach the game like we did all season,” Kezirian said. “We’re here for fun, but the fun is in winning. Then it’s fun for all of us.”