In today's LA Times, there's a nice feature on LB Christian Taylor, his influence on the team, his impact, etc.

What struck me was the apparent lack of respect shown by the BYU players toward the Bruin D either prior to the game or at the half. Here's the excerpt:

"Linebacker Christian Taylor stood up in the UCLA locker room Saturday before the Bruins' 27-17 victory over Brigham Young and made his demand.

'The coaches were out of the room and he (Taylor) told us that this defense was built on people who were told they couldn't,' cornerback Rodney Van said. 'He said [the BYU] backs said we couldn't stop them and that we needed to put a little chip on our shoulder and ride out there onto the field. That's what we did and everybody found heart.'

My question is, where does this lack of respect come from? Where does BYU get off?? I know I always tend to do this, but would ANYONE facing $C ever dare to challenge them the way the lowly COUGARS were challenging our D? What the hell is that?  I know our D has come a long way since Dorrell's initial years or even the Toledo years when we virtually had no capable defense half the time (remember that dreaded Miami game in 1998???). But Coach Walker has to start instilling a fear in the minds of our opponents, and more importantly, that philosophy into the players. When teams like BYU are making threats of that nature, it tells us we need to walk with more of a swagger and back up our talk.

Smash mouth football! We have to believe in it and literally employ a take-no-prisoners philosophy in EVERY GAME. Every game!

Finally, even though we're doing a decent job of keeping our opponents out of the endzone, we need to limit yardage soon... we can't allow the kinds of stats we've been allowing once we play the Cals, the WSU's, and the pricks 'cross town.