I’m an optimist when it comes to this team’s future, but a realist for this season. I’m not going to jump up and down over every bump in the road. but. I’m 100% behind CRN. He has two more full seasons before I’ll question the plan. but, I’m not totally behind Bullough. it’s like he’s coaching from the “defensive coordinator for dummies” book. There are no adjustments. The most telling indication came after the Stanford game where they publicly said they were predicting Price’s rotation. Beyond the predictibility issue, what coach rotates that way? you have different situations, packages, etc. Shouldn’t the rotation be somewhat dictated by the game’s flow and not your slide ruler? it’s clear the defense needs better strategy to go along with the mantra of “fundamentals”

How many times have we heard we need to focus more? How many times have we heard we were out schemed? It’s the same old story. Part of this defensive collapse we’ve seen I lay on Bullough. The other part I lay on the players.

I sure as heck hope that Bullough doesn’t decide to just lay back and let them come at us. He needs to attack more. I hope he’s got a plan that will effectively stop AZ. If he does, I’m hopeful that our defense will show up with the intensity they need to help us win. These guys need to take it personally.

I wish I had a hunch how this game might go. The problem is I just don’t know which team will show up. The one that showed heart and guts and beat UT, or the one that got their rear ends kicked by cal.

How could we lose to a team 45-26 that just lost 42-3 & 30-3 in their last 2 games coming in? We were supposed to be improving and getting back into national prominence. What is going on?

regarding our defense. It is looking more and more like the defense from 2005 with missed tackles and just looking like a bunch of intramural players bouncing off of NCAA Div. 1 players. I believe I read in a different post that bullough has been told that he needs to keep with the defensive schemes that DW had. If this is the case, it’s time to let that go and allow him to scheme his own way. We have nothing to lose at this point because the players aren’t getting what he is coaching, and frankly, he may not even get it. It may be best to just open the door and let him use his own schemes and run the defense the way he sees it. Let’s see what he can as DC. We don’t know what kind of system he would put in, but anything he does would be equal to or greater than what we currently have. I don’t feel the defesne can get any worse. Seeing Cal score at will was frustrating to watch because the previous two games they were held to a total of 6 points. 3 at home and 3 on the road. Then they come to our home and put 45. WTF????

While I’m not ready to give up on a coordinator after six weeks, I think some serious adjustments need to be made. The biggest problem I see with the defense is the propensity to give up big plays. Missed tackles, missed assignments, and blown coverages are the problem. Not mismatched talent per se. A casual fan tends to put these mistakes on the players. However, when the mistakes are repeated over a series of weeks, the blame should fall directly on the coaching staff.

If there’s anything I see happen to the UCLA defense each week is that they hurry to the point of attack, but find themselves out of position to effectively make the tackle. I think the Jahvid Best run was a great example of that.

The days of “bend but don’t break football” are over. Basically YOU ATTACK or GET ATTACKED.
Just turn on the TV some Sunday and watch all of the creative blitz packages.
Or, for that matter just watch another conference, like the MWC, I had a nephew who played for Rocky Long and boy all of those 1 and 2 stars recruits would F****n strap it up and bring passion every game, and they ATTACKED.
One of the reasons the spread is so successful is that it makes you play assignment football and really negates your ability to attack.
When you do not attack on O or D it just sets the wrong mindset for the game IMO.
Come on coaches win or lose ’Bring it"!

against Arizona. For one thing, Foles (QB) has a 76% completion rate. That is not a typo. Against Stanford , he passed for over 400 yards. They used a lot of no-huddle offense, and, according to their head coach, seem to be moving to more of a spread offense, rather than their usual pro-set. Foles has spread the ball around, so there is no zeroing in on a favorite receiver. They have two featured backs, both of whom scored a touchdown against the Cardinal, though they rushed only 14 times in the whole game. Looking at their season stats, though, rushing and passing yards have been pretty well balanced, with an edge to passing yards. Fortunately for us, Arizona gave up a ton of yards to Stanford and were behind for most of the game. To sum up, our defense is going to be under stress. Making the sure one-on-one tackle is going to be extremely important. So I do not envy Coach Bullough. But, what the heck, it’s football. If the players do their jobs, we’ll be O.K. And if we make some errors on D, the offense will just have to step up and put points on the board. It’s a team game after all.

I won’t pretend to act like I know a lot about the technical aspects of defensive scheming, but I have watched this team for many years. One thing that I am certain of is that we have a lot of very talented players, however like most others have stated I don’t think they are being coached very well. I’m surely echoing a lot of comments already made, but I have watched and re-watched the last 3 games and it is apparent that most of the defensive problems come from players either being over agressive and putting themselves out of position or by poor coaching, where players are out of position or lost and confused on the field. Also, as mentioned before, what’s up with ATV playing so far off of receivers in the last game? I think with the athletes that we have we shouldn’t have to rely on the “bend but don’t break” tactics. Also, there seems to be an emphasis on speed and hitting a ball handler hard at the point of contact and less focus on wrapping up ball handlers and stopping forward progress. Too many times I have watched our defenders make an initial hit at or near the line of scrimmage only to let the ball handler bounce off the impact like a pinball and keep running for yards after the hit. I recall one Cal running back (not Best) bouncing off of five separate “tackles” before taking it to the house for 6. That was embarrassing.

On another note, with all the hype surrounding our receiving core both in the spring and pre-season, I am very dissapointed in their performance on the field. Why can’t these guys create more seperation from defenders on long pass plays? For example, at the last game I watched Randall Carroll (the fastest guy out of high school this year), running almost stride for stride with a defender on a deep pass. Based on all the hype I thought he should have been able to run away from him and maybe make that catch, given the ball was slightly over thrown. Instead, the play looked like most of our other deep pass attempts and the results were the same. Incomplete pass. Why is it that our receivers look so below average and un-athletic, minus a few exceptional plays? Is this coaching as well? I look forward to your comments.