Thursday, October 2, 1997
The athletic director’s official guide to dating
FOOTBALL: How UCLA football sets up its nonconference
schedule
By Mark Dittmer
Daily Bruin Staff
Last year the UCLA football team’s off-season started early, and
the blame could reach as far back as 10 years ago.
In 1996, the Bruins finished fourth in the Pac-10, yet
fifth-place Cal was represented in the Aloha Bowl. UCLA’s
conference record: 4-4. The Bears’: 3-5. And when the two went
head-to-head, the Bruins thumped the Bears, 38-29, in Berkeley.
Cal got its edge by going 3-0 in nonconference games. While the
Bruins went 1-2 nonconference – playing Tennessee, Northeast
Louisiana and Michigan (guess which team they beat?) – Cal played
mismatches against San Jose State, San Diego State and Nevada. (For
the uninitiated: Tennessee and Michigan are powerhouses, year in
and year out. The other four schools mentioned are not.)
That’s not to say that UCLA should have scheduled differently.
There are arguments on both sides, and the UCLA brass has no
regrets. But it does some bring a few questions to mind, such as
…
Who puts together UCLA’s schedule?
A couple doors down from Dalis’ office is the office of
associate athletic director Jim Milhorn. Milhorn has been making
schedules for 14 years. Now, he’s ready to call it quits.
For Milhorn, it will be the end of a long career at UCLA. As a
student (class of 1963), Milhorn played basketball for John Wooden.
He doesn’t look the part. Milhorn has the beginnings of a
middle-aged belly, white hair, and he stands no taller than 6
feet.
Nevertheless, Milhorn captained the 1962-63 team that featured
guards Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich.
"The three years I played, I played with three All-American
guards," Milhorn says. "I was obviously a guard."
Milhorn missed Wooden’s first national championship (1964) by
one year.
Milhorn went on to join the department that oversees intramural
sports (the Department of Cultural and Recreational Affairs), where
he worked his way up to associate dean. The dean of the department,
Peter Dalis, became the athletic director in the fall of 1983, and
he brought Milhorn with him to the Morgan Center.
How does Milhorn make our schedule? This year, for example: How
did he decide on Tennessee, Texas and Houston as our nonconference
opponents?
Perhaps most important in considering opponents is how good they
are – or how good they will be 10 to 15 years from now. The better
the team, the more Milhorn wants it on the schedule.
"I think the better opponents you play, I think the athletes
look forward to those kind of games. I look at our schedule in
2000, and we play Michigan, Alabama, USC and Stanford all in the
Rose Bowl. For our fans, that’s terrific. For the football team,
it’s gonna be difficult, but it’s also gonna be challenging and
hey! – if we’re good, that’s the kind of schedule that we could get
a national championship out of."
Another of Milhorn’s largest concerns is to have six home games
each year. College teams are allowed no more than 11 games, and
eight of UCLA’s are in the Pac-10. Four of those are at home, so
Milhorn tries to make sure that two of UCLA’s three nonconference
games each year are at home.
"But it’s impossible," he says. "Eventually you’ve got to return
games. When you play schools like Miami, Alabama, Texas, Michigan
and Ohio State – I’ve got to return those games."
When Milhorn says "return those games," he means that when UCLA
hosts a match-up one year, part of the agreement usually is that
UCLA visits that school another year.
For instance, the Bruins hosted the Volunteers this year, but
played at Tennessee last year. Milhorn would rather play home games
because those produce more revenue for the program. But every
school would rather play at home, and so the Bruins can’t always
fit six home games into a given season.
"The way you end up getting six home games (is) you have to
schedule a team that doesn’t need a return game." (Read: not a very
good team.) Teams like Northeast Louisiana, who the Bruins played
last year, and Boise State, who are on the schedule next year, are
willing to visit UCLA without hosting the Bruins another year.
That’s because visiting teams get cash guarantees for their
visits. Small schools such as Boise State might make more money
from such guarantees than they would from home games. The Bruins,
however, make more in a day at the Rose Bowl than the $200,000 or
so they are guaranteed when they travel.
Recalling how Tennessee and Texas made it onto our schedule is a
little hazy for Milhorn at this point, since he planned it … oh,
10 or 15 years ago.
But Milhorn does remember how the upcoming weekend game against
Houston was arranged.
The Bruins were actually supposed to play Minnesota, according
to a contract signed a decade ago. Last year the Minnesota
schedulers wanted to back out, but Milhorn would only allow it if
they found a replacement to play at the Rose Bowl this weekend.
Minnesota supplied a number of names, Houston included, and Milhorn
chose Houston. Interestingly enough, Houston’s Cougars beat
Minnesota last Saturday, 45-43.
What is Milhorn doing these days?
"I need a game in 2002. My next opening (after that) isn’t till
2005."
UCLA’s football schedule is like an appointment book for
Milhorn, and he’s always on the lookout for a hot date. And yes, he
has had his eye on somebody lately.
"I’d like to bring Hawaii in," he says, speaking of the 2002
opening. "That would be a relatively easy schedule that year, but I
need a home game. We’re playing Missouri – although, I don’t know
… maybe Missouri by that time is gonna be a power. I don’t know
what’s gonna happen.
"If I get Hawaii to come in here then we can go there in a year
when we already have six home games. There’s an exempt rule with
the NCAA, (where) you can actually play 12 games in a season if one
of them’s at Hawaii. It’s to get people to go to Hawaii, (because)
it’s expensive to go to Hawaii."
While UCLA flirts with Hawaii, many other teams hope to hook up
with the Bruins. But the Bruins are no easy date: UCLA has
scheduled nonconference games into 2009. The Bruins’ datebook for
the beginning of the 21st century looks like this:
2000: Pittsburgh, Michigan, Alabama
2001: Missouri, Ohio State, Alabama
2002: Missouri, San Diego State
2003: Illinois, Oklahoma, SDSU
2004: Illinois, Oklahoma, SDSU
2005: SDSU, BYU
2006: BYU, Notre Dame
2007: BYU, Notre Dame
2008: BYU, SDSU, Tennessee
2009: SDSU, Tennessee
Doesn’t Milhorn have any regrets about that missed Aloha Bowl
berth last year?
Milhorn answers with a definitive "No."
"I think we’ve got to play those kinds of games. I think it’s
unfortunate that everybody doesn’t play comparable schedules. But
on the other hand, we were on television. It’s good from that
perspective, in terms of recruiting, in terms of being on
television and in terms of income for the department."
Milhorn is, in fact, retiring this year, and he is doing so with
no regrets.
"They’ll probably be yelling at me for the schedules I’ve
created down the road, saying, ‘How could he do this to us?’"
Milhorn said.
Maybe so, but Milhorn has just been doing what he can to land a
date.