But let’s separate friendship from the business at hand. Dorrell ran a deplorable program and left Neu with a skeleton corp or players. Yes, Neu, you CAN say the previous culture wasn’t good enough, because that is the truth. The truth will set us free.

“…something that the Bruins certainly didn’t do a week ago in preparation for the BYU game.” Is it Pearson who is saying it or Harwell?

In either case, I am sick of hearing how we are not focused in practice. The slightest bit of success has our team reading our own clippings and impressed with ourselves. This dates back to when Toledo was coach. Enough already! You NEVER hear of this kind of lack of focus under Howland.

To change the football program this seriously needs to be the first thing addressed. You have to earn it EVERY single week out there and make them count, because you don’t get that many chances.

I tell all my employess and co-workers. learn from the mistake, try not to repeat them and move forward. It is too easy to get caught up in the “Woe is me/us” routine. Neu needs to continue to be “relentlessy positive”, it is the only attitude he and the team should have.

As far as I am concerned we are on track for an 11-1 season, until proven otherwise. If we lose the next game then I believe we will be on track for 10-2. and so on.

I survived 5 yrs of CTS and still kept my season tickets because I always believed it would get better. Compared to that, the BYU game was a little speed bump.

Move forward.

But wanted to put it here:

VERY NICE…

At least we can put the argument about whether the team quit aside… they did and they admitted it. That’s most important, they accept and realize that it’s not okay to quit or pretend that it’s not that big a deal. In other words, NO EXCUSES! And yes, this is a clear indictment of the previous coaching staff with the revelation that losses were basically treated as non events and joked about. (This is the stuff I got RAILED on for saying the last few seasons… BaldEagle, I’m waiting for my apology!)

I also want to clarify that when I say this loss was an absolute worse case situation and the last thing CRN wanted to happen, I’m talking about in the context of this season, not the grand plan for UCLA football. Obviously CRN and the others are on a 2-3ish year situation and are concentrating on recruiting which is the primary concern with culture. But for this season, one in which we’re hoping to get as much positive growth and building, we are now placed at a crossroads. We could have some good games and wins and a positive campaign to build on, or we could be in serious trouble at the core and in many ways another season behind in the process of rebuilding. As I said before, get rid of everything: the towel waiver, the carpet in the locker room, the pens. This is why.

Personally I believe CRN will lead us across the river into the promised land, but as we’ve now seen, as nice as he is to KD, he also is realizing that he was left in an even worse situation than he imagined.

Rhetoric is rhetoric and game plans come and go but nothing is more important than the following: out of the seven major divisions of the roster( DL, LB, DB, OL, RB, QB, Rec) The 2008 team has two good, one average, and 4 mediocre/piss poor groups. The receivers are pretty good and deep and the DL with Price and Harwell is very good but…lets face it, outside of one or maybe two LBs and 1 DB, the team is flat out bad relative to its competition

Great coaching staffs with poor rosters always pull off a few upsets but usually lose more than they win and get crushed a few times when weak players play below their medicore ability.

If the OL produces only 20yds rushing per game, WSU is probably the only team we should expect to beat. Come on, 20 yds rushing/game and a 3rd string QB in his first year in the program? Be very grateful for every win this season and hang your hat on future recruiting classes. The talent is not here yet.

against BYU. I did see fatigue towards the end in a defense which had been on the field far too long. As for Walker, I have seen his defenses perform triumphantly on one occasion, and give up yards in great gobs the next (think WSU, for one). Some have suggested that he is masterful against pro-set offenses and ineffective against contemporary spreads. I understand the comment, but I don’t see why it should be true. Against BYU this year, it looked to me like we were mostly a day late and a dollar short — in other words, we couldn’t play at their speed. Also, we had no pass rush. But I think all this can be improved with time, focused practice and game experience. I think that the culture change has already begun. No doubt this will be a rough year and we will all have to feel frustration on many occasions, but I think we will have some good moments, too. So I am looking forward to this Saturday and every Saturday, no matter what.

I’m sure like many of you, last Saturday night I decided to go drown my sorrows by cruising the typical Westwood apartment scene. My line of thinking brought me to the conclusion that a nice cold plastic cup of free Miller High Life would get my mind of UCLA’s display of 2-3 star recruited mediocre talent.

No sooner had I finished pouring my first cup and this Landfair apartment did I look up to see an incredible sight. None other than Chase Moline, John Hale, and Chane Moline stood before me, partying it up at midnight like the rest of us.

Now I’m sure many of you will reply, “well what else are they supposed to be doing?” While this is true, my first guess would be that they should probably be at home, asleep getting ready for a week of practice after embarrassing a proud athletic institution. But no, these fine examples of athletic prowess stood there, arrogantly, drinking at this apartment.

It’s not like we lost 28-21, or even 35-14. We lost 59-0. And these were guys that had significant playing time. To me this just showed a lack of though, and even respect for our school.

This post is exactly what I wanted to read, and it rings so true. The culture surrounding UCLA football, and one that has existed for several years is simply pathetic. Having grown up obsessed with names like J.J. Stokes, Skip Hicks, Danny Farmer, Cade McNown, Freddie Mitchell, and DeShaun Foster, I feel cheated from a quality football experience at UCLA (minus the aberrations of a 10-2 freshman year and 13-9).

To end on a positive note, I am glad to read that people like Bret Lockett and Brigham Harwell show actual dedication and the desire to improve. Under Rick Neuheisel, I know that this culture that has permeated UCLA Football will disappear and be replaced with one centered on hard work.

but i hope they did. Getting shutout by a team that struggled to beat a horrible huskies team the week prior is an embarrassment. Most LA area high school teams could have put up a better fight. Score woulda been 80+ to 0 if BYU didn’t call off the attack early in the 3rd. Frankly, i think it’s pretty much unacceptable as a BCS school, injuries or bad recruits or whatever, to get absolutely smoked by a team that doesn’t exactly have a ton of great athletes. At least put up a field goal. UW --who is just as young and inexperienced and plagued with injuries as we (if not moreso)— put up 14 against a waaaay better OU team, and actually gave BYU a fight. I do think we had a bunch of bad luck in this game that got things out of control way too quickly, so just like i can’t give the staff too much credit for the tennessee win (thank Fulmer’s ineptidute), i can’t condemn them for this loss. It’s gonna take time and it’s gonna be a long year. in the end, Neu and his staff should expect to be held to the same standard dorrell was.

I can’t read too much into Harwell’s quote… if he’s implying that last year’s guys quit… maybe they did. but they didn’t have the coaching leadership these guys have… and regardless of the score, i saw Davis at least getting pressure on the opposing QB every game.