Spaulding Roundup: QB Decision & Respect For Kansas State

It's not official yet who will be our starting QB on Saturday. AP reported (HT westwood78) that Neuheisel and Chow and were going to making the decision on Monday night and then announce it today. In his comments with reporters Neuheisel didn't give anything away in terms of which direction he was leaning towards:

"I have full confidence in both those kids," Neuheisel said. "Whoever we give the chance to, the other one still has to be ready. Even with Kevin out, you're still going to be playing with a lot of inexperience on offense, whether it be Brehaut or Craft. We're going to be at home, fortunately, so hopefully we can communicate at the line of scrimmage."

I don't think it indicates that he is conflicted. Given what I have seen from Neuheisel and Chow since their arrival in Westwood, I don't think it's a matter of indecision. I think they have a pretty good idea which way they want to go. They just want to make sure they are deliberate about it and then annouce their decision in a way that would sync up with the whole program.

If you are into reading tea leaves Tracy Pierson from BRO reported that "UCLA coaches intend to prepare"  Brehaut as the starter for Kansas State. Chris Foster's LAT's UCLA report reads Brehaut "is expected to start." Austin has full confidence in Brehaut:

"He's been looking pretty good," senior wide receiver Terrence Austin said. "I think he has everything down. I see him making good reads in practice. He looks confident back there."

And for Reggie Carter it really doesn't matter who takes the snaps:

UCLA has lost its starting quarterback to injuries in each of the last four seasons. But linebacker Reggie Carter said, "Regardless of who is back there, as long as they don't give up the ball we should be fine. We're not going to let teams score too many points."

Well as mentioned in my first post this am UCLA's coaches and players are not in a position to take any of our opponents lightly. More after the jump.

Reggie Carter is doing his part to remind his team-mates not to get too high after Saturday's win:

"We wanted to make sure guys were having fun, but Sunday, I let them know, `We won, it's time to get ready for Kansas State,"' said redshirt senior middle linebacker Reggie Carter, who led the team with 20 tackles against BYU "Last year, we beat Tennessee and we went to BYU and got embarrassed. We're happy we're 2-0, but we're not satisfied. Our goal is to get to 3-0, not 2-1."

Neuheisel reinforced the fact that UCLA is not the kind of program that can just cruise through its opponents:

"We'd be crazy, absolutely certifiable, if we think we can waltz through anyone," Neuheisel said. "We have too many young players and too many things to address."

Neuheisel also has experience of going up against Bill Snyder dating back to his days at Colorado (where some people might be finally putting away their long term grudges and recognize they had a pretty good coach in CRN):

"Kansas State is a huge challenge for us," said Neuheisel, who said the same thing about San Diego State before a 33-14 victory over the Aztecs. "Some say I’m just trying to motivate the team, just using words. I have too much respect for [Kansas State Coach] Bill Snyder, having coached against him in the Big 12 and Big 8 to know this is going to be an absolute dogfight."

Let's hope the practice intensity this week match the sincerity of their words. Saturday is a huge game for UCLA. Random posters who came on here to mouth off about how this game doesn't mean much to our program couldn't be more off base. We need this victory on Saturday because it's gets half way to our goal of getting into a bowl game. That would really put the team in a solid position going into a bye week to get ready for the conference season.  Here is to the team prepares with the same intensity without taking anything for granted and zero in on win number 3 on Saturday.

GO BRUINS.