Spaulding Roundup: Owl Preparations
by Nestor on Dec 20, 2009 3:00 AM PST
in Football
Email
PrintWell I am on my way to LA this morning (provided that we can get out of a snow covered Washington DC in time). So I will not be around much most of the day today. I wanted to get in some practice notes from Friday and yesterday as it now looks like the Bruins are in full game preparation mode (which includes the diving stunts from Friday).
Al Balderas from the OC Register wrote about Rick Neuheisel's over all philosophy to keep his team entertained, motivated and getting them ready for the bowl game:
"Make sure it's a reward but find a way to get them to practice hard. Get ready to enjoy the game, and talk about what winning the game means so that there is a real carrot at the end of the stick."
Neuheisel does not want the Temple game plan to get stale, so he's installing the plays gradually while leaving enough room for fun.
The Bruins have three days to prepare for an opponent during the regular season but, counting Friday they have seven days to work on Temple.
"We put an install day, then we polish," Neuheisel said. "An install day, then we polish. And then an install day, and we get back there and then it's all polish.
"I also want to make sure there's also time for fun, which is the reason we're doing the bowling and high dives and Magic Mountain and all the different stuff.
"You've got to make sure there's a lot of laughing. College campuses, this time of year are ghost towns, so you have to find ways to make this a good deal."
More on Rick Neuheisel's thoughts on bowl preparations in the Daily News:
UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel waited a bit to incorporate the Temple game plan earlier this week as the coaches have taken a good, hard look at the team's up-and-coming players. Part of it was to get an invaluable jump on next year's lineup. The other was to deliver the Temple message at the right time so that it wasn't lost. "You don't want to do it early," Neuheisel said. "You don't want it to get stale. You want it to be where you're thinking, you're getting into it and you get it up to full speed and then perform it. "It's like preparing for a play. You can get tired of rehearsals. You want to get with the live audience."
CRN also mentioned that he had gotten his "formula" on bowl preparation from Terry Donahue. That makes me slightly uncomfortable because the memories of the last two bowl games we collectively experienced from Donahue were not pretty. They included a listless loss against the Jayhawks in the Aloha Bowl (1996) and an unprepared and sloppy one against Wisconsin in 1994. While I definitely understand the need for our guys to have fun and engage in team-bonding, I just hope Neuheisel and his staff have the guys locked in for Temple because Golden's guys are going to be fired up.
Al Golden gave the LA Times a little glimpse on how fired up his Owls are going to be face off against a team from a BCS conference:
"No. 1, any bowl victory is a great bowl victory," Coach Al Golden said. "But when you play a team with the tradition, notoriety and brand like UCLA, it is sure to add significance in terms of perception and in terms of being accepted nationally. Don't think we don't understand for a second the magnitude of playing someone like UCLA."
Again, let's hope our guys are ready to match their intensity and passion on the 29th. More after the jump.
It looks like Kevin Prince had a decent practice on Saturday per Jon Gold's notes:
* Kevin Prince had an effective practice, throwing a couple passes with perfect zip on them. I expect him to play against Temple.
* At this point in preparation, reps are still being divided, particularly at running back.
CRN thinks he will have a "better feel" re. Prince's start by Monday. Meanwhile, more on the running back situation from the LA Times:
"Obviously, we have to create a more efficient running game," Coach Rick Neuheisel said. "We don't want to have to lean on the passing game too much and lean on our protection too much."
Moline had a plow-horse-like day against Arizona State, gaining 84 yards. He was less effective against USC, with 15 yards in seven carries.
Franklin leads the team with 597 yards and has shown the breakaway speed to get quick scores. But the fumbles have reduced his playing time. He has only 36 carries in the six games since rushing for 101 yards against California.
"I'm definitely trying to earn some trust back from the coaches," said Franklin, a redshirt freshman.
"This is the longest season I have ever had, the longest time I have ever been on the football field. I'm getting used to it, slowly but surely, but it's a long time."
Running backs coach Wayne Moses has used the week to "get back to the fundamentals and getting it back in perspective to see who needs to work on what."
Apparently Moline is expected to start per the LA Times. However, I think this could be a game where the coaches should probably also put in Coleman, Knox and Thigpen with a decent amount of reps.
Coleman's physical running style could be a good match for the Temple's tough running defense. This should also be a game where the coaches will need to mix things up and hopefully take advantage of some of the speed and athleticism we have in guys like Franklin, Knox and Thigpen. I don't think it is going to help us a lot if we keep throwing out the same looks we have shown in our last two games (ASU and Southern Cal) for a well prepared Temple Owls team.
GO BRUINS.
35 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
bowl prep
1994, still trying to forget that game.
I think we actually won big games
when Neu was with Donahue
"when you've seen how big the world is, how can you make due with this?"
by silverlakebruin on Dec 20, 2009 9:45 AM PST reply actions
While the last few were clunkers
We did have quite a nice bowl streak going in the Donahue era. More so in the 80’s though, I believe.
by Free the 16 on Dec 20, 2009 11:06 AM PST up reply actions
Safe travels to N and the rest of the BN
I’m uncomfortable with Franklin carying the ball if there are any type of wet conditions on the field. He’s gonna cough it up and break our hearts…
Bruin-4-Life!!!
FWIW
Donahue was 8-4-1 for his career in bowl games.
Formerly ryebreadraz
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Dec 20, 2009 11:58 AM PST reply actions
Have a safe trip, Nestor!
It’s a nice warm day out here!
"The entire world that bleeds blue and gold ... they have been dying for this." - Coach Rick Neuheisel
Donahue Bowl Prep
Prior to Donahue’s last couple of losses, he had a stellar record of post-season performance, winning 8 bowl games in a row, if memory serves. Additionally, he had a habit of taking undersized, undermanned teams into the Rose Bowl against superior Big Ten teams and not only winning, but winning big. CRN quarterbacked one of those teams, and by the time Donahue finished his career with those subpar bowl performances mentioned by Nestor CRN had been long gone from the program, either as a player or coach. So, any tips CRN is taking from Donahue I would suspect come from an era of success.
CRN left after the 94 Rose Bowl
He was there up till Donahue’s second-to-last year.
Donahue also had the habit of leading oversized, overmanned teams
With up to a dozen future pro-bowlers to humiliating losses to the likes of WSU and ASU, not to mention USC whenever the stakes were high.
His record against tough competition was dismal. He beat Nebraska/Oklahoma once combined, and always whined about their advantages. His record against USC with the Rose Bowl on the line was 1-6.
Had nothing to do with bowl prep
Donahue indeed laid many eggs during the regular season, but his post-season record seems to indicate that he knew a thing or two about preparing for postseason games. Aside from two losses at the beginning and the end, Neuheisel’s tenure as a player and coach saw consistent success in bowl games.
Actually in Donahue's last 5 years
He wasn’t successful enough to get to bowl games with regularity. From 89-96 UCLA made it to only 3 bowl games and he had a losing record in those three appearances. This is not the place you want to glorify Donahue. We have had numerous posts pointing out how he was nothing more than a mediocre football coach.
And Neuheisel was there for much of the earlier success
Again, this subject is about bowl prep. Yes, I’ll agree that Donahue didn’t get there often enough in his latter tenure. But, Neuheisel was in and around the program during the 82, 83, 86, 87, 88, and 91 seasons when the Bruins were bowl bound and won in the post season. Yes, that’s cherry picking, but no different that what you’re doing by focusing only on the 89-95 seasons.
Yep, all true
For Nestor to focus just on the last two bowl losses ignores the success that Donahue did have in prepping his teams for bowl games. UCLA was the first school to win four straight New Year’s bowl games in four years, and the Bruins were not favored to win any of those games. The Neuheisel-led Rose Bowl squad was a 28-point underdog to Illinois and wound up winning by 36. The conventional wisdom in those days was that if you give Donahue, Homer Smith, and the rest of the coaching staff six weeks to prepare for an opponent, they could beat just about anyone. Until those two clunkers towards the end of Donahue’s tenure, bowl preparation was something that could be counted on.
I am aware of Donahue's bowl "success" in the early 80s
However, the only Donahue “success” I experienced was a scintillating (NOT) 6-3 win over Ilinois in the 1992 Sun Bowl.
I will never think of Donahue as a good football coach and we have laid out why he was mediocre more than enough times here on BN.
91-96
Those years were far from stellar. Not sure how he was earlier in the decade, but those last few years flushed his legacy into the toilet. So if Rick wants to link to the positives aspects of UCLA’s past great! But if we start to see Terry style play calling and overall team management he needs to go ASAP.
Compared to CTS, yes he was “good”, but our standards should be higher.
there's truth in what both of you say . . .
. . . so long as you acknowledge that the basic issue with Terry Donahue is that he overstayed his tenure. Yes, his later teams were not “stellar” – at least not compared with his heydays in the 80s for certain. But he did finish with a winning record against SUC, (you know how many older alums would have loved to have had a 5 game streak over those guys?) a solid bowl record despite the Kansas and Wisconsin debacles. and let’s face it, his recruiting foundation had as much or more to do with Buffalo Bob’s 20 game win-streak than anything Toledo recruited. Granted the last 5 years were quite mediocre – and there were some head scratching losses, too (WSU in ’88, the SUC Measles game, those two Nebraska losses in 83 and 84 – combined 84-13, IIRC) but he took the program toward a level it had only been once before – when Red Sanders was in charge.
The Mad Bruin
I repeat, 1-6
With the Rose Bowl on the line. His winning record came against mostly crap USC teams.
He also choked
When big games with national championship implications were on the line. The guy couldn’t seal the deal with Troy Freaking Aikman. Sorry I will never be impressed with Donahue.
I'd love to send you the tape
of the 87 game. It was vintage SPTR abuse which ultimately did in the Bruins. Erik Affholter’s juggling “catch” as he’s sliding out of bounds. Rodney Peete ripping Eric Turner’s facemask nearly off after the latter picked off a pass in the end zone and was headed for a coffin nail TD at the end of the first half – no call. Team played well enough to win, and should have won. Wouldn’t blame that one on the sidelines
The Mad Bruin
I should also add
He ran Neuheisel off the program. That is one of the reason I am hoping what Neuheisel will ultimately build at UCLA will be something much better than what we had to settle for in Donahue. If Donahue is still the measuring stick at the end of 5th year in Neuheisel’s program, we will have issues.
Where do you get 1-6?
You’re missing the wins in 1982 and 1983 where they had to beat SC to stay in contention for a RB berth.
Seven straight bowl wins from 1982-1988
Yeah, and I was there for four straight bowl victories, including the romp over former-#1 ranked Iowa in the Rose Bowl. That was unqualified success, especially considering that those Bruin teams were not favored going into more than half of those bowl games.
Doesn’t matter why you think Donahue was mediocre. His post season record is why Neuheisel is looking at that era as something emulate. Keep in mind that the subject at hand is Donahue’s bowl game preparation, NOT his overall record as a head coach, which does leave plenty to be desired.
As someone else said, Donahue overstayed and had many mediocre seasons at the end of his tenure. But, that doesn’t deny that during that period in the 1980s, nobody outside of Bobby Bowden had the kind of post season success that UCLA did. (i.e, first to win four consecutive New Year’s bowl games, first to win seven consecutive bowl games)
and who could ever forget
Donahue was one of the first to say the word “shit” on live, non-cable television, during the Fiesta Bowl in ‘77 or ’78 against Granny Holtz’ Arkansas team . Game finished in a tie (10-10 IIRC), but NBC had the bright idea of a sideline reporter who was a former teammate of Donahues as a GLB back in the 60’s had a mike stuck in his face when a flag came out and a call went against the Bruins. Instantly TD went from telling some glurgy story to “Aw SHIT!” before the shellshocked sideliner could pull the mike away, and no one at NBC could hit the mute button. Think it was even on Christmas day. Was like watching Mother Teresa or the Pope shooting craps at happy hour. A very funny TV sports moment
The Mad Bruin
TD
1. Win streak over $C is really the only good thing we had from him during those years. With his talent Toledo did continue that.
2. Part of the problem is just that, he had incredible NFL talent, but results tended to be average. Drove us nuts how poorly we performed given the players we had every year. I still remember Jamir Miller being in the backfield every single play. Faster version of Brian Price…
3. I wish I was more into football in 1983/1984, missed the boat on his decent years before mailing it in.
Carnell Lake was the player I remember taking up residence in the backfield
Carnell Lake was recruited as a running back and returned punts during his freshman year. But, once he got converted to linebacker, he was a blur in the opposing backfield and purportedly the fastest linebacker in the nation. I believe that Lake still has the single season school record for TFL. Totally unselfish player and a very good student (I had him for a couple of 8am classes, so I knew that he took his schoolwork seriously). Would have had a Hall of Fame pro career if Cowher had kept him at safety, rather than having him play out of position at corner much of the time.
The latter part of Donahue’s tenure was indeed frustrating. I think Donahue just lost his spark (which hurt recruiting), and the rotating door of assistant coaches didn’t help. Those latter teams had some NFL talent, but nearly as much as he had during that 1980s stretch.
Donahue benefited from when the NCAA allowed full-time recruiting coordinators, and Bill Rees was one of the early pioneers of recruiting nationally (it was partly out of necessity because SC had much of SoCal locked down). Back then, about 1/3 of UCLA’s roster typically came from out-of-state. When the NCAA began requiring that recruiting coordinators double as assistant coaches, UCLA’s recruiting really tailed off and Donahue never made the adjustment.
Having Some Fun
I remember being pretty worried about how seriously TD was taking preparations before the Fiesta Bowl when photos of him in a big sombrero with a big margarita at some prebowl publicity event were showing up in the media.
When game time came around, the guys were ready to play and beat a Bernie Kosar-led Miami team.
Also, I can understand how guys from the ’90s would have a different POV on TD than some of us who were around earlier.
From 76 thru 88: 108-38-7 .729 7-2-1 in bowls.
From 89 thru 95: 43-36-1 .544 1-2 in bowls
Yup
We had the win streak against U$C, but a crappy bowl record.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
I knew several guys on those teams and the coaching staff knew how to balance things out
By the time the bowl games rolled around, the coaching staff had a pretty good idea of how to prepare their personnel. The hallmark of TD’s 76-88 tenure was slow starts in September, roll through the Pac-10 in October and and then roll the dice on SC. As I stated elsewhere, the conventional wisdom during UCLA’s mid-80s bowl streak was that no coaching staff was better with a full season under their belt and six weeks to prepare for an opponent. I think Homer Smith and the other veteran coaches that were on Donahue’s staff during that time also had a lot to do with the post season success.
Have to keep in mind that the players are spending two or three weeks on campus during the holidays after all the other students have gone home, with no schoolwork. Bowl games are many things, including a reward for the players. I had a couple of roommates on the football team, and they had a lot of time to fill when they weren’t in practice. The coaching staff did a good of making sure that the prep work was balanced out with other activities.
Bowl preparation is about taking things seriously, but not TOO seriously. Illinois and Iowa provided opposite case studies on what not to do. Prior to the 1984 Rose Bowl, Illinois did the whole SoCal tourist thing, attended Illini alum Hef’s NYE party at the Playboy Mansion the night before the Rose Bowl, and hardly saw the practice field. At the opposite end of the spectrum was Iowa, where Coach Fry had the team locked down in a virtual prison camp over the entire two weeks they were in SoCal for the 1986 Rose Bowl. The common denominator of those two teams was blowout losses to underdog UCLA.
well, except that . . .
Vermeil used the Hayden Fry approach with the ‘75 team, leading up to what amounted to a rematch with Woody Hayes’ Ohio State team with (2 time Heisman winner) Archie Griffin. Earlier that season Hayes had blown the Bruins off the Coliseum turf 41-20; the b*st*rd even called for an onside kick after scoring a TD in the first half -which they of course recovered.
Vermiel’s death-march schedule worked – 23-10 in the rematch in a terrific Rose Bowl game (still have the stub).
The Mad Bruin
I guess he wasn't called the Little Dictator for nothing...
Legend has it that on the plane ride back to Columbus, Woody Hayes was already worried because at that point he knew that OSU would have to play UCLA again in the Rose Bowl.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Coach Fry. He set up his California gulag because he thought the players were “honky tonkin” too much during their previous Rose Bowl trip when they got blown out by the Jacques Robinson-led Huskies. After his prison camp approach didn’t work, the next time he gleefully let his players take in every activity that the Rose Bowl committee could muster up. And that time, they played their best game against heavily favored Washington.
That’s always the trap for the Big Ten teams — most of their players have never been to California and the Rose Bowl committee has this massive checklist of tempting activities that both of the participating teams can partake in if they want. For UCLA and SC in particular, it would seem easier for the coaches to do a lockdown, since the players are still on campus and living in their dorms/apartments. I recall that Donahue and his coaching staff would typically opt for the Disneyland outing, the Lawry’s Beef Bowl, and maybe a couple of other activities. The rest of it was not all that different from fall camp.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
