Dorrell, Guerrero need to get on the same page

The last time we saw the UCLA football team last season, it was losing to Florida State after giving up a fourth-down touchdown pass.

The first time we see the Bruins this year, they are beating themselves with what seemed to be a botched reverse.

Last winter, the villain was Bobby Bowden.

This summer, it was recklessness.

As Karl Dorrell knows now, both can leave you plenty embarrassed.

This is, of course, about Eric Scott, a receivers coach and star recruiter who was recently arrested on suspicion of felony burglary.

No charges were filed, he was properly reinstated, and the expectations-bloated Bruins are awkwardly trying to run past it.

But, for the moment, it’s hard for some of their fans to join them.

It turns out, at the time of his hiring last year, Scott had been sentenced for three other crimes.

Interestingly, Dorrell knew about some of that stuff.

Even more interesting, his boss Dan Guerrero didn’t.

Said Dorrell: “Yes, I knew he had some issues in his background.”

Said Guerrero: “We did not know the background for that particular person.”

Those quotes, given in recent days to local newspapers, couldn’t be more dissonant if they were sung to the tune of “Sons of Westwood” and “Fight On.”

If you believe only those quotes, here’s what you would believe:

Dorrell, known more for cleaning up the program than for consistent victories, felt he had to make a win-at-all-costs move without giving his boss the details.

Guerrero, who has been Dorrell’s most vocal supporter precisely because he has cleaned up the program, felt blindsided.

Dorrell, having won more than seven games only once in four years, with a 1-3 record in bowl games, has always navigated this tightrope above the athletic director’s wide safety net.

For the first time, perhaps, that net has been slightly loosened and shortened.

That is, if you believe those quotes.

Both men rushed to clarify their words this week, with Guerrero insistent that there is no sudden rift in what is the UCLA football program’s most important relationship.

“To get the impression that Karl blindsided me is not accurate,” Guerrero said. “Your saying there is a disconnect between me and Karl, there is nothing further from the truth. Karl never tried to pull a fast one on me. Karl was not aware of the gravity of the issue.”

Guerrero also emphasized their relationship is as strong as ever.

“If I had an issue with Karl, it would have come up long before now, and I wouldn’t be making this call to you, but there are no issues,” he said. “I enjoy working with him.”

Both men said Dorrell informed Guerrero of general facts about Scott’s past, just not the details.

“I explained some of the issues to Dan, but he did not know the specifics,” Dorrell said.

Did Dorrell know those specifics?

“That’s all I’m going to talk about,” Dorrell said.

That is, of course, the issue here, and both men know it.

Would Guerrero have hired Scott had he known that he had been sentenced for three misdemeanors, two involving illegal handguns and one involving disturbing the peace? Well, the Bruins hired an even-more-troubled Eric Bieniemy, who was an inspired assistant before leaving for the NFL.

“The same situation could happen here,” Guerrero said. Scott “could one day look back and be thankful that, ‘Hey, someone gave me a shot.’ ”

That’s fine. There’s no rule against second chances. This is not about Eric Scott, who, if he uses better judgment in the future, could become the strong inner-city recruiter that the Bruins always lacked.

This is also not about UCLA’s school-wide background checks, which apparently allowed Scott’s past to slip through the cracks.

C’mon, fellas. Quit passing the buck. As one of the most visible entities at the school, the football staff needs to conduct its own background checks.

Do you know that, like many assistant football coaches, Scott was hired without even filling out an application?

That’s going to change, the program is going to begin making applicants fill out a disclosure form. From now on, Dorrell will be quick to pass along the results.

“You learn from every experience, I’m not going to lie to you,” Dorrell said. “I will learn from this.”

Dorrell didn’t want to talk about this subject. He is irked that some sports columnists -- OK, me -- seemingly live at USC during the fall, writing about his team only when it messes up.

But he answered the questions, and admitted that he’s still learning, and showed again why, as a human being, he is impossible to dislike.

As a football coach, however, he remains impossible to figure out, the character guy who is not afraid of a rap sheet, the stoic sideline presence who, once inside, hires and fires and schemes with abandon.

The only thing that makes sense is, beginning his fifth season with a loaded team with big-bowl dreams, Dorrell risks facing his first real heat.

Best he stay close to the guy holding the matches.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.