SAN FRANCISCO — Among a swarm of “Are you back in LA yet?” texts that I received the last few days – I’m more popular than I realized – one in particular led to a nugget.

“Not yet, what’s up?” I typed in response to the question.

“Just found some 2011 UCLA playbooks in the garbage,” was the reply. “The Acosta dumpster just had like eight of them lying on it.”

Isn’t that just perfect? Someone – one of the new coaches, perhaps, but more likely an undergraduate intern in the athletic department miserable about having to work over break – decided the tangible narrative of the 2011 UCLA football season belonged in the trash.

You won’t be hearing many complaints about that move from impatient students. Nor from antsy alumni. Nor from loquacious columnists grateful that their mug shots don’t reflect the 70 pounds gained during the extended winter break.

It was time to cast 2011 aside completely and start anew; fitting that on the last day of the year, the Bruins put up a stinker in a 20-14 loss to Illinois in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

The offense was so bad that they should have changed the name to the Kevin Craft Fight Hunger Bowl.

Not even the presence of new head coach Jim L. Mora hovering around AT&T Park in a dapper suit could change the program’s fortunes as the Year of the Rabbit on the Chinese Zodiac came to an end.

Mora was able to deliver some holiday gifts, though, especially in the form of a group of assistant coaches that includes an offensive coordinator whose first name is Noel. How appropriate.

The only significant void still left on the staff is defensive coordinator, and the hope is that Mora will remain in the Christmas spirit and hire someone who promises one thing: Blitzen!

If you take nothing else away from the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl – and there wasn’t much else to take away, aside from the unlimited Oreos in the press box courtesy of the game’s sponsor – then you can at least acknowledge that this program is in dire need of an identity change.

The attempt to mount a downfield passing game, after a year spent trying to establish itself as a running team, was pitiful.

Was it interim coach Mike Johnson’s way of departing the program in style? Maybe. If so, well played, Mike. Perhaps he was the one who threw the playbook in the dumpster.

We now find ourselves in the Year of the Dragon, the flame-breathing animal that was naturally ushered in by the firing of a coach.

It’s a completely fresh start: The day after the bowl game, Jan. 1, Mora and the new regime officially took over.

The 2012 schedule is quite favorable: The Bruins avoid Oregon and Washington again, and they could very well be bowl-eligible by November.

But the first and arguably most important date to circle on this year’s calendar is Feb. 1 – national signing day.

Mora has been logging long days on the recruiting trail trying to make up ground on some of UCLA’s key targets.

He’s already benefitted from a number of his assistant coach hirings, some of whom have brought recruits with them from their previous schools.

His inexperience at the collegiate level makes him a wild card, and that’s going to be the theme of this year: Jim L. Mora, unknown entity. That’s why his hiring was such a roll of the dice, a spin of the dreidel.

But hey, with that schedule, that staff and that outspoken disinterest in anything related to “football monopolies” – I’m guessing he, like Dan Guerrero, prefers Risk – he’s got a shot at, gasp, eight or nine wins in his first season.

I mean, the world’s going to end in 2012 right?

If your New Year’s resolution was to not read any more of his columns (after this one), email Eshoff at

reshoff@media.ucla.edu.