Karl Dorrell (born December 18, 1963 in Alameda, California) was the first African American head coach in the history of the UCLA Bruins college football team, a position he took on December 18, 2002. Dorrell was fired on December 3, 2007.^[1]

High School

Karl attended Helix High School in La Mesa, California, where he played football. He was a two-time all-league selection and a honorable mention All-America as a senior. He led Helix to the CIF San Diego Section title in 1980 and to second place in 1981. He and his wife Kim have two children, Chandler and Lauren.

Career as a player

Karl went on to play football at UCLA. Dorrell was one of the most successful wide receivers at UCLA. He had 1,517 receiving yards on 108 receptions in college. He suffered a shoulder injury in 1984 and was granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. He played on a team that won the Rose Bowl in 1983, 1984, and 1986, and that won the Freedom Bowl in 1986. During the 1983 season, he caught touchdowns from quarterback and future-coach Rick Neuheisel. During the In the 1986 UCLA vs. USC game, UCLA quarterback Matt Stevens faked a kneel as the last play of the first half. He threw a Hail Mary pass, which was tipped into the hands of flanker Karl Dorrell to put the Bruins up 31-0 over the Trojans at the half on the way to a 45-20 victory. The Los Angeles Times labeled this, "Hail Mary, and in your face."^[2]

After the 1986 season he earned his Bachelor's Degree.

He had a brief career as a player in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1987 season, but he was placed on the injured reserve.

Early coaching career

His first job as a coach was in 1988 as a graduate assistant at UCLA. That season the Bruins finished the season with a record of 10 wins, 2 losses; winning the Cotton Bowl.

In 1989 he became a wide receivers coach at Central Florida. In 1990 and 1991 he was the offensive coordinator and receivers coach at Northern Arizona. He again was a wide receivers coach at Arizona State in 1994.

Twice, from 1992 to 1993 and from 1995 to 1998, Dorrell was a wide receivers coach (and an offensive coordinator the second time around) at Colorado. There he was famous for coaching Michael Westbrook.

His last collegiate coaching job before he became the UCLA head coach was at Washington, where he was offensive coordinator and receivers coach in 1999.

NFL assistant coaching career

Dorrell became the receivers coach of the Denver Broncos in 2000, under head coach Mike Shanahan, a position he held for three years until he took up the coaching job at UCLA. While there, he coached players like Rod Smith, a two time selection to the NFL's Pro Bowl and Ed McCaffrey, a one time Pro Bowl selection. With the help of Dorrell, Smith and McCaffrey became only the 2nd wide receiver duo to each catch 100 passes in a single season (2000).

UCLA Bruins head football coach

Karl Dorrell was hired to replace Bob Toledo, who was released at the end of the 2002 regular season. Between Toledo and Dorrell, Ed Kezirian, an athletic department official who oversees the academics for the football team, served as interim coach for the 2002 Las Vegas Bowl. Under Kezirian, the Bruins won the bowl game over New Mexico 27-13.

Karl's hiring as head coach was announced on December 19, 2002 by UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero. Bruin fan bloggers had mixed reactions to the announcement ^[3]. The most common criticism has been that Karl's head coaching ability was unproven and it was believed that he was not the right person for the job.^[3] Karl was brought in at UCLA to clean up a program marred by allegations of NCAA violations in the final years of Bob Toledo's tenure.^[4] In that regard, even his harshest critics concur that he has achieved that goal.^[3] Ed Kezarian has remained on the football staff.

2003-2004 seasons

The UCLA Bruins football team under Dorrell recorded a mark of 6 wins, 7 losses in his first season as head coach in 2003, with an appearance in the Silicon Valley Bowl, and a loss to Fresno State.

In 2004, his second season the team finished with a record of 6 wins, 6 losses and an appearance in the Las Vegas Bowl, with a loss to Wyoming.

Across town, the arch-rival USC Trojans won back-to-back college football national championships, which included two wins over UCLA.

2005 season

In 2005, his third season as head football coach, Karl was able get his first win against a ranked opponent, #21 Oklahoma featuring Adrian Peterson.

On October 1, 2005, head coach Tyrone Willingham and his Washington Huskies came to the Rose Bowl for a Pacific-10 Conference game to play UCLA. This was the first time two black head coaches faced each other in a Pac-10 conference game. At the time, Sylvester Croom of Mississippi State University was the only other black coach heading a NCAA Division I football program. Karl achieved his first win against a top ten opponent with a 47-40 upset win over number 10 ranked Cal.

Three Bruin wins in the 2005 season set new school records for biggest comebacks. They came thanks largely to the heroics of quarterback Drew Olson and tailback Maurice Jones-Drew. In the regular season the Bruins came from down 21 points to win in overtime against both Washington State and Stanford. In the Stanford comeback, the Bruins scored 21 points in the final 7:04 in the fourth quarter.^[5]. In the Sun Bowl, the Bruins set the record again by coming back from 22 points down.

The Bruins were ranked number 7 in the nation until a 52-14 blowout loss to a 3-8 Arizona team. The Bruins came into the UCLA-USC rivalry last regular season game ranked number 11. They suffered a 66-19 defeat, to the number one ranked 2005 USC Trojans football team. This was the largest margin of defeat since the series began in 1929 with a 76-0 defeat. The Bruins finished 3rd in the Pac-10.

On December 30, 2005 his Bruins defeated the Northwestern Wildcats in the Sun Bowl 50-38, finishing the season with a 10-2 record. At the end of the 2005 season, Dorrell and fellow UCLA coach Ben Howland received pay bonuses for coaching successful seasons. Karl was named Pac-10 co-coach of the year along with USC head coach Pete Carroll.

2006 season

In 2006, the fourth season, Dorrell guided the Bruins to a 7-6 season (5-4 PAC-10) and a fourth place Pac-10 finish.

UCLA played its first game at the University of Notre Dame since the 1960s and was leading 17-13, but the Irish scored a touchdown in the final minute to win.^[6]

The most notable victory of his coaching career at UCLA was a 13-9 defeat of #2 ranked and Bowl Championship Series title-game-bound USC on December 2nd, 2006. The win kept the Trojans out of the title game and broke a 7-game UCLA losing streak to the Trojans (thereby preserving the Bruins' 8-game win streak in the rivalry from 1991-1998 as the longest run in the history of the rivalry). The victory also clinched a winning season for UCLA.

The Bruins played in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco against a Bobby Bowden coached Florida State University Seminoles team on December 27, 2006 and lost 44-27.

2007 Season

In Dorrell's fifth season at UCLA, with 20 returning starters and a team of his own recruits, hopes were high for the Bruins in 2007. After starting the season with a couple of wins over Stanford and BYU, and achieving a #11 Associated Press ranking, however, UCLA stumbled against an injured, winless, and unranked Utah Utes team, 44-6.^[7] Four weeks later, Dorrell's Bruins fell again; this time 20-6 to an unranked, winless Notre Dame team.^[8] The Bruins did, however, post wins against seemingly more difficult PAC-10 opponents, including a then-no. 10 Cal team. However; the bad taste of losses to teams the Bruins were favored to beat (including an embarrassing 27-7 loss to Washington State) raised questions about Dorrell's play-calling and ability to motivate his players.

After the Washington State loss, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero addressed UCLA's inconsistent football performances for the first time, stating "I will be very interested to see how we finish the season. And you can use that." Many took this as a hint that Dorrell's job may be in serious jeopardy.^[9]. The Bruins would go on to lose to Arizona and Arizona State by a combined score of 58-47, but surprisingly shut out an Oregon Ducks team that a week earlier lost starting quarterback and Heisman Trophy Candidate Dennis Dixon to a knee injury. Heading into the final game of the regular season against crosstown-rival USC, the Bruins still had an outside chance at a Rose Bowl berth that might have saved Dorrell's job; with a victory over USC and some help from Arizona (with a win over ASU), the Bruins could have been the first-ever five-loss team to play in the Rose Bowl. It wasn't to be, however, and the Bruins finished the 2007 Regular season with a miserable offensive performance in a 24-7 loss to USC and a record of 6-6.

On December 3, 2007, Los Angeles papers and the Associated Press reported that Karl Dorrell was fired during a meeting with athletic director Dan Guerrero.^[10]

DeWayne Walker has been named Interim Head Coach for the 2007 Las Vegas Bowl, which will feature a rematch of the September 8 regular-season game against BYU that the Bruins won 27-17.^[11]

Coaching record

External links

• Karl Dorrell's biography at the UCLA Bruins website

Footnotes