Costa (Along With Masoli) On The Horizon For UCLA Defense

by Nestor on Oct 6, 2009 3:45 PM PDT in Football

Masoli continues to sit out of Oregon practices. From Rob Mosely at the Register-Guard:

Jeremiah Masoli sat out again today with his knee injury, and at this point it seems likely that Nate Costa will be the starting quarterback at UCLA on Saturday.

"Nate’s our guy this week," tight end Ed Dickson said. "It’s unfortunate what happened to Masoli.

"Nate was competing for the starting job during the summer, and I trust Nate to the fullest."

Costa has been the primary backup to this point. He said the last two days have been about improving his timing with the No. 1 offense.

"I’m getting out there and getting used to those guys," Costa said. "As of now I feel great. ... The timing’s off a little bit. But I feel like yesterday we kind of worked on it, and today I felt really good."

Indeed, Costa seemed very sharp today in pretty much every drill. The receiving corps, though banged up, made a number of nice plays, including a couple by Rory Cavaille (shoulder), who was in full pads for the first time since preseason camp as far as I can remember, and Tyrece Gaines, who was back today after what Chip Kelly said was an excused absence Monday.

Meanwhile, per John Hunt of the Oregonian, Ducks DB Willie Glasper went down with "an apparent knee injury." Gasper had stepped in after Walter Thurmond went down with a season ending knee injury.

First of all I hate reading injury reports. It's the worst part of being a football (or even a sports) fan. We should know that given how our own team has been repeatedly bit by the injury bug over the years. At the same time, I sure hope these injury reports don't lull our players or even fans into any kind of false sense of comfort.

We have already seen how the Ducks have been resilient in battling back from adversity after what appeared to be a crushing opening game on national TV. They have showed the ability to tough it out and get the job done. I have no doubt those guys are going to come out, fired up no matter who is taking the snaps this Saturday.

It will be up to our defense not only match the intensity of what could possibly be the best team in the Pac-10, but also come out and atone for the slow start (defensively) against the Cardinal this past Saturday. We are looking right at you Coach Bullough, Reggie Carter and rest of UCLA defense. Doesn't matter who is out there for Oregon on Saturday. Bruins will need to make a stand and statement right out of the gate to address some of the concerns around their slow starts this coming Saturday.

GO BRUINS.

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Comments

Masoli

I won’t miss him if he doesn’t play. That kid has been ballin’. But, that’s the breaks. Great update Nestor. No matter who suits up for the Ducks, were underdogs in our house. Who’s gonna stand up Sons of Westwood?

by BruinAl on Oct 6, 2009 5:22 PM PDT reply actions

Like Monte Kiffin says

It wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if he missed the flight

There's no one in the world that wants to beat UCLA more than _______.

by ucla13_usc9 on Oct 6, 2009 5:54 PM PDT reply actions

Careful about karma

Look what happened to Monte. :-)

by Nestor on Oct 6, 2009 5:59 PM PDT up reply actions

lol

dang

There's no one in the world that wants to beat UCLA more than _______.

by ucla13_usc9 on Oct 6, 2009 7:31 PM PDT up reply actions

Any word on Prince's x-rays?

by JWongUCLA on Oct 6, 2009 6:13 PM PDT reply actions

Scheduled for Wed IIRC

by Nestor on Oct 6, 2009 6:47 PM PDT up reply actions

thump thump

There's no one in the world that wants to beat UCLA more than _______.

by ucla13_usc9 on Oct 6, 2009 7:31 PM PDT up reply actions

Won't matter

As Nestor said, please Bruin Fans don’t get comfortable with the news of Masoli being out. Even though, I suspect he will play, Costa is a vey sufficient backup and will run that offense just fine. Over at Addicted to Quack the Duck faithful are chiming up that UCLA the (offense) sucks and thank god they get us and washington before the real compition begins with Stanford. The Offense should be clicking on all cylinders this week. I suspect we will see our playmakers coming out party, and am hoping they have Thigpen returning kicks, because as much as I love AV, he either fair catches or jukes himself into tacklers and we don’t utilize that very important postion. Remember MJD used to catch the ball when it looked liked he would get creamed. He hardly ever fair caught the ball, ok I don’t expect the MJD performances, but I want to see some explosion on the Special Teams Unit, if AV can’t do it, then let someone else try.

by westwood12003 on Oct 6, 2009 8:17 PM PDT reply actions

So they're going to take us lightly?

Then we might have a good chance if they are.

by JWongUCLA on Oct 6, 2009 10:21 PM PDT up reply actions

That makes sense

I didn’t realize fans on the internet dictated the play of their team on the field. In other news, Oregon has cancelled practice for the week in an attempt to avoid further injuries. Coach Chip Kelly was quoted as saying “It’s not like we have a big game against USC or Stanford this week, so we can afford to take this time off.”

by DTD on Oct 7, 2009 7:16 AM PDT up reply actions

Or maybe the fans pay attention to the team?

The fans got the opinion that we’re still a 4-8 team somewhere.
If the Ducks team feels that way it works to our advantage,

by JonnyG on Oct 7, 2009 10:07 AM PDT up reply actions

Costa might be better than Masoli anyways.

Masoli’s more dangerous running than he is throwing, which I think could actually play to our defense’s advantadge given our relatively strong run defense and linebackers. Costa’s more of a passer and might well be able to take more advantadge of our secondary than Masoli would be.

by Magnusblitz on Oct 6, 2009 9:54 PM PDT reply actions