Learning Point

by Nestor on Oct 2, 2006 5:21 AM PDT in Football

We are not the only ones who continue to be utterly unimpressed with the coaching job of Dorrell's staff going into the 5th game of the season. Here is Dohn's grade for the coaching staff for the Stanford game:

COACHING - C

It is clear defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker knows what he is doing. But after listening to coach Karl Dorrell talk about how great practice was all week, it is a huge concern the offense didn't score in the first half and managed just two touchdowns against the worst defense in the Pac-10.

That's the 3rd straight game Dohn has given Dorrell a "C" or worse for his coaching efforts on game days. Not good. And while Dorrell is fiddling and pretending that nothing is wrong with UCLA's offense, frustration is mounting among key players in the team:

Nine times UCLA entered Stanford territory in Saturday's 31-0 win, but the Bruins scored just two touchdowns. The Bruins rolled up 389 yards of total offense, but had two offensive touchdowns and saw two more drives stall in the red zone.

Within those statistics UCLA's optimism is bred, and its frustration is mounting.

UCLA (3-1, 1-1 Pac-10) moved the football again, but for the second time in three games the inability to finish drives and put an inferior opponent away earlier than in the fourth quarter left the offense lamenting about its potential, and how it will achieve it.

"We're not doing what we need to be doing," Bruins receiver Junior Taylor said. "We still need to capitalize on turnovers. We have to learn how to finish drives, and when (the defense) gives us the ball, score immediately. We're still not doing that. It's great we got the win, but the offense is not where we need it at."

After four years we are still going through the learning phase of Dorrell's WCO:

"I think the biggest learning point was when we didn't make that fourth-and-goal," UCLA coach Karl Dorrell said. "We came back in the second half and pushed through it and made things happen."

Yeah they came back in the second half and scored 17 points against the mighty Stanford defense. Indeed an awesome display of learning and growing at the Rose Bowl. While Dorrell is in LA LA land, his offensive coordinator is sounding more like a yoga instructor than a football coach:

"There's a high expectation level within our group, but sometimes that can impede you," offensive coordinator Jim Svoboda said. "You still are where you are, and you shouldn't necessarily be someplace. You are where you are. You just deal with reality, and it was fun to see, because they could have just kept struggling, ... and they just kept battling and hopefully they feel like, 'Yeah, that's what you've got to do and everything will work out.'"

Seriously, can anyone translate this nonsense? Our offense is struggling because of its own high expectations? WTF? Are we still going to hear this kind of nonsense after this upcoming Saturday's game, when UCLA gets to take on Arizona's 86th ranked defense in the country? Whatever their offensives issues are, the coaches need to figure out in a hurry. They had a golden opportunity to get everything in gear and crank it up against the worst team in the country this past weekend. And they blew it. They looked horrible against an atrocious defense, which shut them out in the first half. They ought to be ashamed of that pathetic effort. The Stanford and Arizona games present golden opportunities for this team to resolve all their issues before they get to play the big boys from Oregon, ND, and Cal. And after last weekend it still looks like the offensives issues are not settled. They will have one more game against another horrible Pac-10 defense to get their offensives issues ironed out. Because, if they don't get their red zone issues fixed this Saturday, they are going to run out of excuses heading up to Eugene.

Meanwhile, as the LA Times notes the defense is shining.

Horton Celebrating a 'furd Fumble (Hans Gutknecht/LA Daily News)

Yes, the Bruins do have the 3rd best defense in the nation. And they should be able to pad their stats some more taking on Arizona's 109th ranked offense this Saturday. But, as I said, I am going to withhold my praises until I see how they stack up against Dixon/Stewart and Quinn/Walker attacks in few weeks. Forgive me for not getting all excited from seeing our guys finally showing they know how to tackle and stifle some horrific offensive teams. Our standards should be a little higher than that.

This program hasn't proven anything yet. If they want to stay on track to meet the minimum expectations for this season, they will need to demolish Arizona, and head up to Eugene with a good mindset. After our last performance, right now as Dohn notes, there are still lots of concerns Dorrell and his staff needs to address, which they better figure out this week. It is not comforting to see the head coach still talking about learning points after the fourth game of the season. He will probably run out of learning points after this coming Saturday.

GO BRUINS.

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Your sister school has problems, too

Hey Nestor,

Get off Dorrell's back for a few minutes and check out the other side of the fence for a second. No, not USC. Your sister school has it's own problems with some sort of inferiority complex. Cal seems to be searching high and low for some validation, anywhere but on the field.

Check it out this stat geek lunacy from the official Cal web site: http://california.scout.com/2/574652.html

Keep your heads up, Bruins. At least you have more dignity than this!

The Displaced Trojan

by Displaced Trojan on Oct 2, 2006 7:44 AM PDT reply actions

Arizona's numbers are a bit skewed

They have played the #12 schedule in the country(ucla#60). They also played their easiest game without their QB. That said UCLA should be able to hold them to no more than 10 pts.

by cv on Oct 2, 2006 8:24 AM PDT reply actions

Grades

I agree that the offense still has problems to work out (continuity in play calling anyone???). Svoboda seems to be lost in going after a teams weak areas during the actual game.

The defense has looked very good, especially compared to last year (actual tackling does wonders).

Nestor, you are correct in not wanting to sing the praises of the defense (#3??) just yet because of the competiton we have played. But I am cautiously optimistic that at least we will be competitive on that side of the ball whoever we play (I'm probably out on a limb on that one). Dohn did give the defense "B"'s and above for the job they did against Stanford.

My point is, with a new DC and several new players in the mix (Linebackers as an example) the defense does seem to be on track and improving each week.

Now if we can just get that damn offense rolling.

I will be at the Arizona game this weekend to check em out again.

Way too early in the morning for complete thoughts, just try to understand the ramblings.

GO BRUINS!!!

by artybruin on Oct 2, 2006 8:26 AM PDT reply actions

Does anyone think that the O

numbers are going to get better? We all know that this is the easiest part of the schedule, and Olsen's # are going down with each game. He went from 5 TD and 1 INT after game 2 to 5 TD and 5 INT now.

by cv on Oct 2, 2006 8:58 AM PDT up reply actions

Halftime

KD never seems to articulate what halftime adjustments were made and whether or not they were successful. To be fair, maybe he just isn't being asked the right questions.

However, when he does mention halftime, it is just typical BS, and makes me want to puke:
"We came back in the second half and pushed through it and made things happen."

This is the same crap we used to hear from Lavin, and SUC probably used to hear it too from Hackett. It just begs the question, does KD even know what adjustments are being made or should be made at halftime?

by bornagainbruin on Oct 2, 2006 9:53 AM PDT reply actions

KD's ramblings

This has infuriated me as well. KD gets interviewed going into the locker room, and spews some nonspecific bs about "exectution," without showing even a glimmer of recognition that halftime is the officially designated time to reevaulate what has been going on on the field and to make changes. Obviously, I don't know what actually has been happening in the locker room, but what I've seen in 4 second halves sure hasn't convinced me that any real coaching is going on.

by Menelaus on Oct 2, 2006 10:15 AM PDT up reply actions

The State of the Program

Now that we have seen how the team handles possibly the worst team in the nation, we're about to see how ugly it's going to get against legitimate teams. Although I'm certainly not pointing to Arizona in that category, the games against Oregon, ASU and Cal certainly do. I don't know what's going on on the sidelines, but the offense should have put up no less than 5 scores in the first half alone.

If the coaching staff couldn't put together and implement a gameplan to demolish an utterly pathetic Stanford squad, especially coming off of the horrific loss to UW, I'm truly fearful of the top half of the conference. After that "win" against Stanford, I'm even more convinced that a regime change is absolutely necessary at the end of the season. Not that I hadn't come to that conclusion last year.

I can foresee a couple of bad losses coming up, coupled with the coaching staff's open willingness to point fingers at the players and a general "cluelessness" running through the sidelines.

To paraphrase Yoda: Losing leads to frustration. Frustrated players without leadership leads to more losing. More losing leads to a chaotic lockerroom. That leads to a 4-8 season.

by SactoBruin on Oct 2, 2006 12:51 PM PDT reply actions

Arizona better then ASU

Arizona hung tough with Suc for most of the game. I think they are more competitive then ASU. We won't get blown out this year. We'll lose a few but not 8!

by bruinelder on Oct 2, 2006 3:09 PM PDT reply actions

I don't think this team will blow out Arizona

either.

by cv on Oct 2, 2006 4:33 PM PDT up reply actions

The Defense

"But, as I said, I am going to withhold my praises until I see how they stack up against Dixon/Stewart and Quinn/Walker attacks in few weeks. Forgive me for not getting all excited..."

But you said two weeks ago...

"We should all withhold making any judgment until the end of the game this Saturday. Because, given the quality of Washington's OL and running game, we will find out how much the Bruin D has truly improved... We are going to find out early how much this defense has improved on Saturday. If Rankin and James are ripping off 5-6 yards a carry in the Huskies early drives, it could be a long day for Walker and co. It will be imperative for Bruins to stop the run early..."

Ya lets keep waiting so when they do have a bad day we can say 'ha I told you so' and then use it as ammunition to fire Dorrell. Give it up, all yall. Its been fun watching our defense fly around and lay some hats. Whether we are playing crappy offenses or not does not matter. The fact is we are running to the ball and hitting as long as we keep doing that we will be in games. Oh ya and going back to Nestor's keys to winning in Washington (i.e. imperative for Bruins to stop the run early) that shows how much you know about football. Cus I could a swore we stopped the run.

by bruinman310 on Oct 2, 2006 10:24 PM PDT reply actions

Yeah we stopped the run against UDub

only to have Stanback run circle around us in the second half.

And by the way we did stop the run early and were in position to blow out Washington. If not for Dorrell and Svoboda's assclownery we'd be by a score of 28-0 instead of 19-0, and would have the game in bag. The defense by stopping the run early did put the team in position to win, only to have the HC give it away.

Nice for you to popp up just to flame away. If you had thoughts about what I wrote two weeks earlier you should have said it instead of making pathetic efforts to flame away now.

by Nestor on Oct 3, 2006 4:44 AM PDT up reply actions

Troll Alert

Not the first time you insulted/attacked a BN moderator.

By the way Bruins did stop the run early against Washington putting us in position to get a blow out win. So not sure exactly what was your beef with that take? Looks like you are just here to flame.

by bluestreet on Oct 3, 2006 8:25 AM PDT up reply actions