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Forgive me for not getting too excited when I opened up my e-mail inbox a couple of nights ago to find a UCLA press release telling me that Jay Norvell was going to be the man to turn around the Bruin offense come August.

I know we’re still months away from spring practice and then training camp, with a deep run in the NCAA Tournament on most people’s minds right now, but I wanted to nip this thing in the bud before it gets too late.

I want to squash any notions of a re-energized West Coast offense for the 2007 season before coach Karl Dorrell and his players feed me the bland lines about the new coach – in this case, Norvell – coming in and “really opening things up,” which is one of those sports euphemisms that someone is going to have to explain to me.

The fact of the matter is that this coaching change could be seen coming from a mile away. Dorrell waited a grace period before handing former offensive coordinator Jim Svoboda his walking papers after only one year on the job. In his short stint as play-caller, Svoboda designed an offense that managed only 23 points per game and kept the Bruins from having anything more than another mediocre season.

Norvell will likely prove to be a more creative Xs and Os guy than Svoboda (which isn’t setting the bar too high). Norvell is a West Coast offense disciple who has been the quarterbacks coach in Nebraska for the past three seasons, studying under Bill Callahan. Next year will be his first chance to develop his own offense and call the plays.

But the change in coordinators does more to remind me of everything that is holding the UCLA football program back.

Rather than try to implement a high-concept offense that attempts to master efficiency and timing patterns, maybe Dorrell should just focus on recruiting the best natural athletes he can get and then utilize their abilities more flexibly. Dorrell would have a much easier time getting elite prospects to commit to UCLA if he were to employ an offense with a broad foundation that could really take advantage of the most explosive athletes on the roster.

Instead, however, he has attempted to recruit players who seem to fit more narrowly into his West Coast system, hoping they will develop .

Former Bruin quarterback Drew Olson said it took him three years – until 2005, his senior season – to finally feel comfortable in Dorrell’s offense. That year, Olson led the Bruins to a 10-2 season in which the offense scored 39 points per game.

Olson was one of the most intelligent athletes to play under Dorrell, and was able to overcome a lack of natural ability with workmanlike play. Think about how long it would take a more physically gifted player who was, shall we say, less mentally acute. Think Michael Vick.

The way Dorrell has built his program suggests that one of two possibilities must be true. He has either sacrificed recruiting blue-chip prospects at the altar of his West Coast offense, or he has tried to overcome a roster with scant athletic specimens by using a more intricate system. It’s obvious that the latter explanation is the real reason, which is actually a testament to Dorrell’s ability as a coach, if not his ability as a recruiter.

He knows how to take an offense and make it better, which he proved again in 2006, when he assumed some of Svoboda’s responsibilities in the middle of the season by taking a more hands-on approach once it was obvious his offensive coordinator couldn’t get the job done. Dorrell never fully revealed how much (if any) of the play-calling he was doing, but it was evident to anyone who followed the program that he was the one who deserves credit for turning around the Bruins’ season with a four-game winning streak. He got every last inch out of an offense that lacked a true playmaker.

The unfortunate reality is that Dorrell’s technical knowledge of the game is still light-years ahead of his ability to recruit big-time players to Westwood. Until he finds a way to get more physically gifted skill players into his program – big receiving targets who can run and jump, or big bruising running backs or slashing tailbacks – he will be forced to patch together a team that will hover around seven wins, maybe reaching nine or 10 every three years or so.

So while UCLA welcomes in a new offensive coordinator, competing Pac-10 programs are welcoming in the next class of Dwayne Jarretts and Marshawn Lynchs.

E-mail De Jong at adejong@media.ucla.edu.