:35 left.

that will be us AGAIN…and we will sweat out the final 2 victories over WSU and ASU or AU…THIS SUCKS!

and I’m sure for the rest of you. But I’m still full of pride and still full of hope for the future. There is nothing else we can do but to go on. Permit me one moment of selfishness when I lament: How long must we wait for victory?

Forever a Bruin

and we did see that we may actually have one today, and that it is getting better.

However, the defense took a huge step back, and I think the receiver play was absolutely inexcusable. Austin stoppoing short on his pattern that would have been a td, Rosario not tucking the ball in and dropping it, etc. Way too many “should have been caught” plays.

So, let me attempt to thread a middle ground. Clearly, we are a better football team than last year, game for game. But, we’re still not that good yet. RN has had some recruiting success in his short tenure, but he doesn’t have enough talent yet for UCLA to compete at the level we expect. He doesn’t have enough size or speed. He has more talent now than when he arrived, but not enough — and certainly not enough EXPERIENCED talent.This team will get better next year, and the year after that, as RN continues to bring in talented players, and the talent already in the program matures and gets better.

After opening the season with three decent wins, I fell in with “higher expectations than I had a right to” crowd. I’m guilty. What I forgot is, PAC 10 games are tougher, with more on the line, and by the time we started the conference season there was plenty of film for opposing teams to pick a part our young, untested, inexperienced, not very deep, not very fast, not very big team. What many frustrated fans see as a lack of effort on the field I see as a lack of ability compared to the other team. The reality is, this team is playing up to it’s ability, just as last year’s did. Personally, expecting six wins is out of this team is unrealistic.

But, that doesn’t mean I like watching this team lose, that I’m not frustrated, that I don’t question RN’s decisions or wonder why we can’t at least get some of the fundamentals correct (tackling, for instance.) As far as the coach: His teams show a knack for playing undisciplined (penalties, particularly at key moments) and at times inefficient clock management. AND, why the hell Craft played instead of Breauhart while Prince was out. Still, RN is building a program. He’s bringing in playmakers and talent — he’s recruiting size and speed. These players will make the difference. There’s a reason why some teams are better than others. After that, it will be time to find out if RN is a championship callibur coach or just a very good coach that will get us 8 to 10 wins a year and an occasional New Year’s Day bowl game.

Next year will be better than this year. In the meantime, I will continue to watch an offense that is incapable of scoring touchdowns and consistently hits a wall at the 20 yard line. Talk about painful. I’m happy for Forbath’s success. But if he is never needed to kick a UCLA field goal — other than a last-second game winner — as long as I live it will be too soon.

First off, it has become very clear to me that our offense definitely has what it takes to put points up on the board. However, our inability to do so on a consistent basis mainly comes down to the play in two, and arguably one, position/s: the QB and the WR’s.

Prince showed that he was more comfortable today. Though not all of his passes were on the money, many of them were. In fact, I recall two big passes that were missed by the WR’s. The first came late in the first quarter and came right before the first field goal attempt by Forbath. It was a pass to Rosario in the endzone and was thrown a little high. At first I thought it was out of reach, but when the replay was shown the ball could clearly be seen going through the hands of Rosario. It SHOULD have been caught. The other big pass came in the 4th quarter on a fade rate to Austin. The ball originally appeared to have been overthrown, but on the replay Austin was shown slowing down to adjust to an “underthrown” ball. Once Austin realized that the ball was actually on target he tried to make a play on it, but by then the ball was out of reach. Had Austin kept running, that would’ve been 6 points guaranteed. Perhaps CRN should be looking to recruit a couple blue chip WR recruits because we clearly need them.

No doubt 3 straight losses (2 at home) are frustrating, however, I would just like to remind everyone that this is year 2 in a rebuilding process. We knew exactly what the state of our program was when CRN took over and we all knew that it would be a long road back to glory. When all the pieces are place, THAT’s when we will start to see them go for 4th and 1’s/2’s without hesitation, THAT’s when we will start to see the offense open up, and THAT’s when we will be seeing reel after reel of UCLA highlights.

Stay relentlessly positive bruins. We will get there.

He’s the towel waving guy. His strategy for winning was pretty simple. He said (in paraphrase) line up and beat the guy opposite you. I didn’t see that today by our defense. We were consistent only in that we would give up a 40 yard plus play on every series. We might make Cal go in reverse for two plays, then they would torch us with a trick play, like sending their best back on an off-tackle play, for 90 plus yards, or a trick pass play (and this will be confusing nomenclature for you newcomers) called a “post pattern.”

I don’t know if we were out coached, but our players were certainly out played. I cannot say that I see an brightness toward the end of the tunnel with the defensive players and coaches we have now. Who is our defense going to stop? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if out 3-0 start turns into a 3-9 season.

And what that means is that we must be even more supportive of our players. They are all good players. They were all great high school players, and they’re all busting their rear ends. Our coaching staff is trying its best, but things aren’t working. Let’s keep up the support for the team, while we try to talk Rocky Long into moving up the coast from San Diego. I have no confidence that the best our defensive coordinator has is good enough.

Hi guys, new here, first comments.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw from our offense today. I’ve been visiting this blog for about a year and a half and never felt the need to post anything, however when our own fans are talking about a 3-9 season and the world is crashing down…I just needed to.

I gave Kevin Prince a break last week. He was back from broken jaw, played a horrible game. Without a doubt, the injury and the time-off from it, led to his bad performance last week. I expected a bad game because of the time off.

Other than some horrible throws, Prince looked good. He has the arm to go down field and he did. However, the receivers let him and the team down. There were many opportunities there, but many of the receivers just never made the plays. I see a lot of potential in him, he is developing and getting better, and by each game he will improve.

The surprise of the season, so far, has been the offensive line. I feel really good about them. They are getting better and better. The running game is getting better, the quarterback has time to throw. Can’t ask for more from those guys on the line.

If the defense can break the habit of starting slow and wrap up better when tackling , I think a 6-6 season is within grasp and ultimately that was the goal of this season.

A strong finish this season, and if Price stays next season, then this could be a good team next season. That’s the whole point right now, we’re playing for next season and the seasons after. A 6-6 season is never good, except when a team is rebuilding from the ground up.

GO BRUINS!!!!

WE SUCKED TODAY. I sat in the best seat I’ve ever had, right on the 50 yl up high under the press box. I saw a team that did not play with toughness and that blew it most of the time. I AM SICK OF SETTLING FOR FIELD GOALS. I am sick of weak play calling, what the F, is Chow still working for ‘sc? How come we can’t punch the ball over for half a g’dam yard if our O-line is “so good?” How come Rosario, “Mr Future” dropped 3 balls? Where are the running backs? Prince is so slow my dead grandma could run him down. I mean give me a break!! I’m sick of timid playcalling, I’m sick of Kevin Prince not showing up, I’m sick of not seeing Brehaut except when I do he can actually complete a pass, I’m sick of false start, holding, facemask penalties, I’M SICK OF THIS TEAM NOT PLAYING TOUGH, DAMMIT!! Karl D was a milktoast but Rick won’t chew them out except for secret discipline? I WANT A SMASH MOUTH FOOTBALL TEAM THAT INTIMIDATES and so far, these guys are NOT SHOWING UP. And stop this lame talk about how we sort of showed signs of progress, how so and so looked almost acceptable… WE LOST, DAMMIT and ALL 3 of these games were winnable IF WE PLAYED LIKE WE F-ING CARED !! I am sick of losing like this. I’m sick of unrealized potential. I watched Randall Carroll totally dog a route on a passing play where he should have been open. I’m sick of seeing Thigpen – THIGPEN!! – RUNNING INTO A STACKED UP LINE. I’m sick of this supposedly great defense getting MAULED on the line and giving up MASSIVE YARDS to opposing runners. And no I am not drunk. I do not drink. But this team is going to drive me to drinkin’ if they don’t stop SCREWING AROUND and PLAY WITH SOME HEART, DAMMIT !!

I WANT OUR TEAM TO BE THE ONE THEY SAY PLAYS WITH THE TOUGHNESS OF A BIG-10 TEAM NOT F-ING STANFORD. STANFORD??!!

Can you DIG it?

out

No matter how good of an excuse he can come up with, it is still an excuse.

Actions speak louder than words. The time has passed for promises. It’s time for tangible results.

Beating Tennessee, K-State and SDSU might have seemed like a mighty accomplishment at the time, but in retrospect was just wishful thinking. Losing decisively to a mediocre Stanford team, badly a QB-less Oregon team and in a less than embarrassing fashion to a pretty solid (albeit disappointing) Cal team is moving in the right direction. No one likes losing. But our O-line is worlds better than last year and we have tons of young talent. And CRN and Chow called a better, albeit less than perfect game, relative to last week. It’s too early to throw in the towel on Prince – anyone remember Cade McNown’s early days? Even if he could have played better at times, today was not his fault. We’ll right this ship.

We lost three games in a row at home to teams that deserved to be favored over us—teams that were nationally ranked at one time or another or were clearly further along. I admit to believing that we could win one of those games, but only if we played consistently well on both sides of the ball, something that really hasn’t happened yet in league play. I see the same mistakes and failures that everybody else does, and the same moments and stretches of good play, but I am going to resist the human tendency to state any generalizations or characterize our team or its coaches based on the data we have. Because it is of very little use. Of course we must piss and moan, or be hopeful and optimistic, as we choose, and that we have certainly done. But six league games remain. We should try to win each and every one of them. In other words, for the coaches, for the players, for the fans, the past is only useful as a source of mistakes to correct. Otherwise, it no longer exists. Learn and move on. That seems like the best approach, IMHO.

let’s be realistic…for the past three games we allowed the other team’s running back over 100 yeards, and in CAL’s case 2 runners over 100…DEFENSE was supposed to be our strenght…wasn’t it?…WHAT HAPPENED?…i actually has us losing to CAL and OREGON…so in my book we were to have been at this point 4-2…so 3-3 is not that far off…IT’S JUST THE WAY WE ARE LOSING THAT KILLS ME…we give up BIG PLAYS on defense…why???…don’t we have 4 or 5 potential ALL-AMERICAN’S on defense, or so we were told…i am totally depressed now for the third week in a row…this harkens back to the KD teams who NEVER LIVED UP TO THE HYPE…

back east and caught the ASU-WASH game (back and forth between the Angel disaster). The receivers on both these teams seem to hang on to the rock when a good ball is thrown their way. What a concept!