Do You Want Walker?

There is a blog out there that does. Just came across it this week. We Want Walker is a site dedicated to promoting DeWayne Walker as the head coach. There is some good information in there and I think they do a pretty good job of detailing and defending the accomplishments of Walker as a defensive coordinator (make sure to read the comments). I also like Walker a lot as a defensive coordinator and I think he'll just continue to get better in that position as he gains more experience. He's not a great DC right now, but a good one, and I think his recruiting accomplishments speak for themselves.

As of today, I didn't see much on their blog stating why he would make a good head coach, though. It will be interesting to see why they think he would be a better candidate over guys like Mike Leach, Norm Chow, Chris Peterson, and others. I stated in my coaching profile that I would be OK with Walker if these other "first tier" candidates don't pan out. He is definitely a second (or third, or fourth) choice for me since he doesn't bring head coaching experience to the equation.

I do think he will, one day, be a good head coach. He just needs some more time to learn the ropes. He has only been a defensive coordinator for two seasons. Not too many D1-A programs take guys with such little experience. Well, besides UCLA, anyways. It would be nice to actually get a guy who has been there before so we don't have the inevitable learning curve and early mistakes. Even a guy like Walker, who I think has a lot of great qualities, will have to navigate his way around for the first few years.

Do we really want UCLA to be a training ground for first time head coaches? I would prefer they learn somewhere else (Moutian West, WAC, D1-AA, etc.) and then translate that experience into results in Westwood. This is a football program that has had historical success (though not much in the last few decades) and it is time that we start seeing ourselves as a program that deserves top notch coaches, not as a program that has to gamble on unknowns.