Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

I think we can all agree that the last two years have been an absolute pit of misery for UCLA football.  The wins over Tennessee were great, but by no means dominating performances.

We all know that Coach Neuheisel inherited a disastrous situation.

And a lot of us believe that the coaches could be doing some things differently with these players, as young, inexperienced and limited as they are.  Because of all this, our team essentially has to play mistake-free football, which is a lot to ask of such young players.

But on top of all this, I can't help but think...

By golly, CRN has had some terrible luck along the way.

He lost Patrick Cowan before the 2008 season started...

...then lost Ben Olson on the very next play...

...then lost a starting offensive lineman to a freak golf cart injury...

...had an injured Khalil Bell as a running back...

...lost his best Tight End in the first game of the season last year...

...and then this year, our starting QB, who had shown some promise, goes and gets his jaw broken...

...a promising corner (Hester) breaks his leg...

...a bunch of freshmen go and do something stupid to get suspended.

Anyway, what am I getting at?

If you look at the totality of Coach Neuheisel's coaching career, his early success, his fall from grace, and his chance at redemption...it just reminds me of a certain character from the Forrest Gump movie:

Lieutenant Dan.

Lieutenant Dan was a decorated soldier who got his legs blown off in Vietnam, gets saved by Forrest Gump against his will, only to return to an ungrateful society.  He hooks up with Forrest Gump again after the war, still depressed, and joins him on his shrimp boat.  The scene that sticks out in my mind is the one in which they are stuck in a hurricane, and Lieutenant Dan is at the top of the mast, screaming at God, "IS THIS ALL YOU GOT?!", daring to be killed.  The hurricane passes, they survive, and Lieutenant Dan is finally happy.  As Forrest says, Lieutenant Dan had finally made his peace with God. And they both got rich because the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. boat is the only one that survived the hurricane.  Later, at Forrest's wedding, Lieutenant Dan shows up with his bride, titanium legs, and freshly issued shares of Apple Computer as a wedding gift.

So, CRN is Lieutenant Dan, and he is up on the mast right now, in the middle of this football hurricane.

UCLA Football is Forrest Gump.

I'll let you figure out what the Apple shares are.

We'll get there.

GO BRUINS.