…per Tom Dienhart, who we talked to and confirmed it as done, done, done. If so, the end of an era at UCLA has arrived: we’ll weep into our vanilla ice cream mourning the inconsistencies, the losses to 2007 Notre Dame, the injury curse that seemed to strike the Bruins more than nearly any other team in the nation, the oddball triumphs like the USC game last year, handing Florida the national title shot.

So, at the least, the blog owes Karl Dorrell a note of thanks for this:

Meaning: UCLA will have its pickings from several different coaches, inclduing Mike Leach, who is unshy about his interest both in coaching in California and in going somewhere else other than Lubbock. (He backchanneled interest in the Alabama job last year, believe it or not, an application that landed with a thud on the well-shined desk of Paul Bryant.)

Dewayne Walker, the defensive coordinator for UCLA, will interview, but he’s a more likely pick for the Wazzou job, where they specifically want a minority candidate who can work the South California recruiting circuit. Chris Petersen’s there, as is Steve Mariucci, who’s done the Pac-10 coaching thing before and wouldn’t be coming in as a Callahan-style Fumblesworthy hamhandedly twisting the dials of game he didn’t quite comprehend.

(That was just an excuse to use the phrase Fumblesworthy, but it was worth it.)

Rick Neuheisel is not a candidate for any number of reasons, one of them being his entanglement with the Georgia Tech job: David Cutcliffe, Paul Johnson, and Bobby Johnson are all possibles there, but Neuheisel did what rapscallion coaches do best: interview very, very well.