Another week of UCLA football, another loss. Although let's be honest, are we really in a position that we didn't expect to be in pre-season? We already have 75% of our win total from all of last season and we have an entire half season to play. I see tangible improvement in this team over last year's team. We are still very young and we will make bonehead mistakes (see KP pick 6), but those will get better with time.

As for the criticism of our defense...think of it this way: we have had 2-3 quarters of BAD defense, about 10 quarters of average defense, and 11-12 quarters of great defense. Don't believe it? We've held the opponent scoreless for 10 quarters so far this year (out of 24). It's hard for me to get upset at their play when they've kept us in every game except one. We could have easily beaten Stanford and Oregon if our offense had stepped up. So, I guess I just don't get the knock on our D (except for some poor tackling). One more thing about our D that is interesting...in past years DW's defense would bend but not break, but ultimately give up field position. This year we are giving up big plays or forcing 3 and outs and generally handing our offense decent field position (too lazy to look up stats, sorry). So, perhaps Bullough's scheme IS actually a bit different from DW's, at least from a philosophical perspective. Moving on to the guess from last week...

1.  Will UCLA score more FG's or TD's? FG's

2. Name a Bruin who will recover a fumble. None

3. Will UCLA's first play be a run or pass? Run

Bonus: Who will score last? Cal

bru79, MexiBruin, YRLBruin, and Centric guessed all 4 correct. I'm not sure what kind of system Centric is using, but he/she has guessed all questions correctly 3 times now (Nars has as well). Tarot cards perhaps? Simply amazing. Here are your year-to-date top performers:

1. Nars (14)

2. mdjohns4 (13)

3. Centric (12)

4. matiasucla (11)

4. dproduct11 (11)

4. YRLBruin (11)

7. Bellerophon (10)

7. MexiBruin (10)

7. Harsha (10)