Pivoting ...

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 5:44 AM PDT in Football Comment 23 comments

So today we will start putting the Rice game behind us and start thinking about Washington. Yesterday thought Dorrell still had to talk about the Rice game in his Monday chat with the beat reporters. Today's papers have some of Dorrell's word of wisdom.

Despite scoring just 26 points against Rice Owls, KD is feeling good about his running game:

Offensively, although UCLA's 26 points were the fewest Rice allowed in 16 games and the Bruins don't yet have a rushing touchdown, Dorrell singled out the running game and gave kudos to the interior of the offensive line for clearing the way for tailback Chris Markey to rush for a career-high 208 yards.

"We made a few mistakes, critical mistakes," Dorrell said. "When you turn the ball over, it stalled some drives. We moved the ball very, very well. Wow, the run game, it was unbelievable with what we were able to accomplish from running the ball from Week 1 to Week 2."

His standards are really high. Aren't they? We don't have a single rushing TD after 8 quarters in this season, and our running game is "unbelievable." Some Dorrell supporters are fawning over that 208 yards Markey rushed for, which is nice. But no one (except Dohn) pointed out the fact the coaches decided not to play Markey most of third quarter, even though he had 116 yards on 13 carries at the half. The guy was missing in action in the first 13minutes of the quarter, before busting out for 36 yards on his first carry in the third. Anyways, we can only hope we will see better play calling/coaching decisions up in Seattle.

Lonnie White has more on Dorrell's assessment of last Saturday:

"We had some pretty good performances, although we didn't get the points on the board. We weren't executing to get touchdowns instead of field goals.

"This will be a great game to go over with for our team; so we can catch up some things that we can be really good at.... We did a lot of positive things, but there were just some miscues that overshadow the potential of what this team can become."

I guess really no need for a snarky retort here. But still. Executing to get TDs instead of FGs? This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I mean I heard from a very good source that apparently UCLA spent substantial amount of $$ for Dorrell to get some media training couple of years ago. And we are still getting these kinds of gibberish, unclear, coach speak from KD, which frankly not only embarrasses the head coach, but is also embarrassing to the university, where he graduated from. Anyways ...

Time to pivot and move on to the next game. Obviously Bruins need to resolve their punt returning issues. Well we needed to figure that out before the Rice game. But I guess we will use next two weeks deal with the disaster which is now the special teams. Here is Robert Kuwada on what Bruins will be doing to fix punt returning issues in next two weeks:

The Bruins will use their bye week to work on catching punts and making better decisions. Everett was near the 10-yard line and against the sideline when he misjudged the punt Saturday. UCLA would have been in poor field position had he let the ball go out of bounds, but at least the team would have retained possession.

"We're going to put them in more live situations in practice, in terms of getting a full coverage," said Dorrell, who coaches the punt returners. "I think all of them catch the ball well. ... I think the next step is really putting them under pressure and getting coverage down and distracting them, things like that. We're going to spend a lot of time doing that this week."

Huh? So Dorrell himself is responsible for coaching the punt returners? And this is what we have been getting last two weeks. We will see how Dorrell's "coaching" come through in Seattle in two weeks.

Speaking of the Huskies, already mentioned how they had a tough road game against the Sooners. To get a little sense of Husky fans mindset going into their game against Fresno State, here is Washington Husky Football blog:

We always figured we would be 1-1 coming into this game, and Fresno St is a really big game as far as bowl contention is concerned. The Bulldogs gave the Duck's everything they could handle at home on Saturday and will be just as formidable a foe as Oklahoma.

Lappano also didn't call a very good game by continuing to force a square peg in a round hole which did not give his QB a lot of help. The call for an option inside the 5 when you have had no trouble running the ball up the middle all day is very questionable to say the least. You have four downs to make four yards, go with the percentages, and the percentages say that I.S. can't run the option under pressure.

Pass defense becomes a real concern as we get closer to the conference season because two teams that don't pass well have put a lot of yards on us the past two weeks. We all were counting on improved play and have yet to see it at the corners. Not many teams will beat UW with the run this year, but they really won't need to.

How good is Oklahoma? I don't think they will beat the Duck's in Autzen, if they do it will really surprise me.

How good is Washington? Much better than most expected, and about where I figured they would be. The question is will they be able to bounce back and win this week against another tough opponent? They will if they get improved play from QB. I expected a lot better performance from IS (Isiah Stanback - N), obviously he hasn't made a quantum leap from last year but perhaps Carl Bonnell has.

The note on their pass defense is pretty interesting. I am pretty sure BO will probably not see another funky Rocky Longish 3-3-5 formation from the Huskies, which he got from Rice. But it is a pretty good bet Huskies will be watching lot of the Rice tape, and figure out ways to mix in coverage, and put pressure on the first year QB. It sounds like Huskies have a pretty good run defense (although they did give up huge chunk of yardage against Peterson). So again it will be really up to Svoboda and Colletto (OL coach) to work with the OL, and come up with schemes, which will allow UCLA to establish a credible running game early. This will alleviate some of the pressure of Olson, allowing him to manage the game in a hostile situation on the road, and use a balanced attack to keep the Husky defense off guard.

In other words it will come down to coaching.

We will see if UCLA gets that in two weeks in Seattle.

GO BRUINS.

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It's too early to judge..

His standards are really high. Aren't they? We don't have a single rushing TD after 8 quarters in this season, and our running game is "unbelievable."

Your comment isn't fair. Your leaving out the rest of his quote. "..it was unbelievable with what we were able to accomplish from running the ball from Week 1 to Week 2." You failed to mention in your remarks that "ubelievable" is his opinon on the improvement from week 1 to week 2. He wasn't saying our ground game is ubelieveable. He was merely noting the improvement.

I love this site and I love a majority of your posts but sometimes I get the feeling you go out of your way to find negative things to say about KD.

Yes the Rice game was well below what we are capable of but it's only the second game. Let's all calm down. We are 2- 0! After we beat Utah people were going nuts about how good we are. Then we barely beat Rice and now the sky is falling. Let's keep a level perspective throughout the season. When we finish 11-1 and beat $C were all going to be laughing about how pissed we were at the Rice game. GO BRUINS!!!!

by bruinelder on Sep 12, 2006 10:06 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Well ...

I don't really that think that "improvement" was "unbelievable" given we were playing against a team that has lost 17 of its last 18 games. I wouldn't use the word "unbelievable" when describing our running game. I will wait to see how we do against some other legit defenses before throwing that word around.

Just trying to keep a perspective based on reality.

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 10:23 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I agree.

I love this place. GO BRUINS!!!

by bruinelder on Sep 12, 2006 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Agree and disagree

I thought the run game was about as good as we could have expected it if you take out the poor decision to bench Markey when he was running hot. I mean, to be fair, we got a lot of TDs from the exact same plays Markey was running, the problem is that he doesn't have the gamebreaking speed of MJD who would turn 30 yard gains into sure TDs. MJD type players are rare, so I'm not going to demand that of Markey and Bell, they are simply different types of runners.

Let's not use 2-0 as a shield from criticism though. That's like pointing out how Lavin went to all those Sweet 16's. Not that KD is Lavin...yet. But he hasn't proven to the contrary either.

by scittles on Sep 12, 2006 10:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Also

KD always starts strong:

started the season 5-0
started the season 4-1
started the season 3-2 eventually at 6-2 before collapsing

So forgive me for not getting overly excited over 2-0.

by bluestreet on Sep 12, 2006 10:55 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

2 - 0 is not a shield!

It's nothing to be proud of either. A lot of teams wish they were 2 - 0 right now. That was my point. I won't be satisfied until we go 13- 0! GO BRUINS!!!

by bruinelder on Sep 12, 2006 1:59 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

the pass defense...

is a major, major concern. we have made two QBs who were just named the starter before the season look like heisman candidates. Southpaw Jesus is likely the most talented passer the Dawgs will see thus far and unless UW can get to him, he'll throw for 800 yards and 26 TDs.

Though the run defense has looked ok. :)

Zach
The Dish

by zachls5 on Sep 12, 2006 10:50 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

and here we thought

UCLA football fans are cynical.

Zach ... what's your take on run defense last weekend given Peterson had a pretty solid day.

Was it the Sooners passing that set up their run? Was the Husky defense putting up an 8 man front the whole day?

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 10:57 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Did I miss something..........

Utah had only 287 yards in total and didn't convert a 3rd down all game, either by run or pass and Rice had 184 yards in total of which 58 of it was a run.

There doesn't seem be any Heisman quality passing numbers in those totals.

GO BRUINS!!!!

by artybruin on Sep 12, 2006 4:11 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Zach is a Husky fan

visiting us from U Dub Dish.

He was referring to Husky opps - San Jose State and Sooners.

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 4:14 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks Nestor

Now it makes more sense. Obviously did not read it in that context.

Carry on.

GO Bruins!!!

by artybruin on Sep 12, 2006 4:24 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

hey Nestor

It seems to me that everyday someone comments on your critism of Karl Dorrell.

To me it seems that you like to compare him to Steve Lavin.

It is also strange that you never put it on the the players. They have more control of what happens out there, I mean you can't blame Karl Dorrell for Marcus Everett botching a simple punt.

In that case Bill Parcells is responsible for Drew Bledsoe throwing int's.

The coaches AND the players deserve the BLAME for that performance.

GO BRUINS!!

by uclabruins05 on Sep 12, 2006 11:50 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I can't speak for Nestor

but as far as the special teams debacle, the botched kick, definitely on the players, that was just bad. Muffing the kick return? Everett has to own up to it as his mistake, but maybe if there wasn't this ridiculous carousel of returners instead of having one or two guys do it all the time, then there would be less chance of a huge mistake like that one. There's no doubt in my mind that kick returning is one of the more difficult duties in football, what with guys coming full speed at you while you stand there like a sitting duck, so all the more reason to name a starter there and give him some repetitions. Shouldn't have had to wait this long for that to happen IMO.

by scittles on Sep 12, 2006 12:06 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Blaming the players

You mean like how Lavin supporters and Lavin himself implicityly used to advance the arguements that how it was all JR Henderson, Toby Bailey, and Kris Johnson's fault. Like how Lavin and his supporters used to argue once he had all his recruits in everything was going to be all right.

I think I have seen this movie before.

So yesterday a player's dad posts here calling out Nestor's loyalty to the program and players, and today you are asking why Nestor is not criticizing the players? Which is it?

Actually what is going on is Dorrell supporters can no longer hide in the message boards, and now that this blog is exposing the real story, and seeking accountability from the program, it is getting on the nerve of blind loyalists.

Looks like BN is hitting its mark and judging from the sitemeter traffic below, only growing.

I would think Nestor and his crew will ratchet it up.

by bluestreet on Sep 12, 2006 12:07 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Players and Coaches.

I can only speak for myself. The players and the coaching staff are to blame for the poor play against Rice. Coaches didn't have them prepared or fired up for the game. Players were having trouble with routine aspects of the game (punt returns, passing.) The blame falls on everyones shoulders. Ultimately the buck stops with KD. I think he is a good man with great character and win or lose he is the head of the program. I just don't think he can be completely to blame for dropped punts and his QB fumbling the ball. Let the season play out and then we can judge the success or failure of the program (KD.) GO BRUINS!!!

Yours truly,

Kent Dorrell

by bruinelder on Sep 12, 2006 2:08 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

KD's brother

see:
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/sports/atoz/article_861413.php

by uclaw1 on Sep 12, 2006 2:15 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Running game

"We don't have a single rushing TD after 8 quarters in this season, and our running game is 'unbelievable.' Some Dorrell supporters are fawning over that 208 yards Markey rushed for, which is nice. But no one (except Dohn) pointed out the fact the coaches decided not to play Markey most of third quarter, even though he had 116 yards on 13 carries at the half. The guy was missing in action in the first 13minutes of the quarter, before busting out for 36 yards on his first carry in the third."

Well, a running game can still be effective even if you end up putting the ball in the end zone through the air instead of on the ground.

And I don't understand all this antagonsim about Markey getting so few carries in the 3rd quarter. Here were Khalil Bell's touches that quarter:

1st-10, UCLA21 11:16 K. Bell rushed up the middle for 8 yard gain
2nd-2, UCLA29 10:25 K. Bell rushed up the middle for 13 yard gain
1st-10, RICE26 9:47 K. Bell rushed up the middle for 3 yard gain
1st-20, UCLA41 5:55 K. Bell rushed to the left for 12 yard gain
2nd-8, RICE47 5:00 K. Bell rushed to the right for 4 yard gain

40 yards on 5 carries, or 8.0 yards per carry. Is it really a crime that Bell got those yards instead of Markey?

And after Markey racked off his 36-yard run, Bell got the next two calls, making this pretty nice sequence:

1st-10, UCLA14 2:05 C. Markey rushed up the middle for 36 yard gain
1st-10, 50 1:40 K. Bell rushed up the middle for 9 yard gain
2nd-1, RICE41 1:10 K. Bell rushed up the middle for 4 yard gain
1st-10, RICE37 0:50 C. Markey rushed to the right for 12 yard gain

In the quarter, Bell rushed for 53 yards on 7 carries. I see no reason to complain about that.

by 3South on Sep 12, 2006 1:15 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

The running game was very effective

in the second half ...

Rice outscored UCLA 16-13 in the second half.

Yes it was "unbelievable."

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 1:23 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't understand

your argument.

Bell rushed for 75 yards on 11 carries in the second half, Markey for 95 on 10 (including a garbage time four-yard loss). That's over eight yards per carry for the two backs.

It wasn't the running game that led us to be outscored in the second half. It was pass protection and penalties that derailed a couple of scoring opportunities. The running game was the one thing that went well.

by 3South on Sep 12, 2006 1:29 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Look at the whole picture ...

I don't have the time to go drive by drive.

But take a look at the play calling in UCLA's first possession of second half:

U 1-10 U31 UCLA drive start at 13:08 (3rd).
U 1-10 U31 Olson,Ben pass intercepted by SHEPHERD, Ja'C. at the UCLA44, SHEPHERD,

You'd think UCLA start out with giving the ball to Markey who had racked up more than 100 yards in first half.

and then the second drive:

U 1-10 U21 UCLA drive start at 11:23 (3rd).
U 1-10 U21 Bell,Kahlil rush for 8 yards to the UCLA29 (RUCKER, Marcus).
U 2-2 U29 Bell,Kahlil rush for 13 yards to the UCLA42, 1ST DOWN UCLA
(RAINES, Brian).
U 1-10 U42 Olson,Ben pass complete to Pitre,Michael for 17 yards to the RICE41,
1ST DOWN UCLA (SHEPHERD, Ja'C.).
U 1-10 R41 PENALTY RICE personal foul (SHEPHERD, Ja'C.) 15 yards to the RICE26,
1ST DOWN UCLA.
U 1-10 R26 Bell,Kahlil rush for 3 yards to the RICE23 (PRICE, Chad).
U 2-7 R23 Olson,Ben rush for loss of 5 yards to the RICE28 (SENDEJO, Andrew).
U 3-12 R28 PENALTY UCLA substitution infraction 5 yards to the RICE33.
Shotgun
U 3-17 R33 Olson,Ben pass incomplete to Everett,Marcus.

U 4-17 R33 Medlock,Justin field goal attempt from 51 GOOD, clock 08:53.

Settled for a FG.

So when UCLA was getting in scoring possession instead of looking for its most effective weapon of the night, Svoboda and coaches were depending on Olson.

Sure pass protection and penlaties were the problems, but why weren't the coaches looking to Markey who was ripping off more than 10 yards everytime he touched the ball.

Markey should have had more than 300 yards on Saturday night. But didn't because of bad playcalling.

Anyways we can go on and over it. But no matter how much you try to spin the stats, can't cover up the fact UCLA had an underachieving night against one of the worst teams in D-1A.

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 1:45 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I certainly

am not saying the game wasn't a disappointing effort.

I'm just saying that the running game wasn't part of that problem, and giving Bell more touches than Markey in the third quarter wasn't remotely part of the problem.

by 3South on Sep 12, 2006 2:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

We will have to disagree

respectfully of course.

I think Bell is a good runner. But I believe coaches should have stuck with the hot TB and had run Markey carry the load in 3q. As I mentioned he was ripping off first down yardage on almost carry.

I agree that running game wasn't part of the problem. But I do believe the coaches failed to optimize the production out of our two good backs. That is why I disagreed with the use of the word "unbelivable" when it came to describing the UCLA running effort against Rice.

Hopefully they can feature a more balanced playcalling against UDub in two weeks. Thats all.

by Nestor on Sep 12, 2006 2:46 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well put.

It would have been nice to see Markey run his stats up and punish the Owls for playing pass "D" all night. At least then we could point out how dominating our tb is.

by bruinelder on Sep 12, 2006 3:53 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs