Guess BN has seduced Dohn, as well.

But it’s interesting seeing UCLA picked everywhere from 4th to 9th in the Pac-10 for this year. What that says to me is that there are lots of question marks about our team. There is no consensus that we will be good (as is a reasonable prediction with the 2 JC’s at the top) or terrible (Stanford). So any complaints that we are overly optimistic or overly pessimistic are just randomly based opinions (to which everyone is entitled to voice, but for which no unassailable argument can be made).

I have no idea what our final record will be this year, (my worthless random opinion is 6 wins). But I do know that I am hopeful about football again. I am excited about the potential for this program. I think some of the pieces for growth (excellent coaching, good recruiters, some top-flite commits) are already in place. I think there is a buzz and enthusiasm among UCLA fans. All these are things I haven’t seen or felt for a while.

We’ve talked before about the difference between hope and expectation. We’ve had high expectations before, and even fairly recently. But those expectations were, for me, always tempered by fear of the possibility (probablility?) of underachievement. In other words, I didn’t have much hope. But now, for the first time in a long while, I have real genuine hope that UCLA football is going the right way – and that reasonable expectations of excellence can soon follow.

as there are about the whole conference. I think the reason we see the Bruins ranked anywhere from 4-9 is not as much because of our unpredictability, but because seemingly everyone in the conference is unpredictable. USC and Arizona St. seem to be the class of the conference this year. After that though, it’s anyone’s guess.

We have an injury prone QB and no offensively line. Oregon is replacing a QB that was leading the Heisman race before getting injured. Once injured the Ducks struggled mightily and their best RB is gone too. Cal only returns 5 starters on offense, lost their best playmaker and hasn’t had a QB step up and take the job. Oregon St. had a poor offense and won games with defense last season, but only 3 of those defensive starters are back and they still don’t have a competent QB. Washington has a coach on the hot seat after going 2-7 in conference play last year. They’re overly reliant on a QB who’s only a sophomore and their defense that was horrendous last year doesn’t look like it’ll be much better this year. Head down to Tucson and you have a consistently underachieving program with a coach on the hot seat. They finished under .500 last season and return only 3 defensive starters. Stanford is definitely on the upswing, but they’re a few years away while Washingston St. is in a situation similar to ours with a new coach and not an abundance of talent.

Fact is the Pac 10 is going to be down this season and is nearly impossible to predict. For all of our question marks, 8 other teams in our conference have nearly as many or more.