UCLA hosted a number of recruits from over the weekend. It looks like they nabbed a solid defensive end in Rykeem Yates (HT longbordr52). Greg Biggins posted a story on Yates on his ESPN's insider site. From the toplines it sure sounds like Biggins is impressed with the young man:

UCLA picked up a commitment from one of the most underrated defensive line prospects in the West region, Rykeem Yates (Fresno, Calif./Edison), who committed on his official viist to the Bruins.

Yates is one of those guys that is just a football player. The 6-foot-2, 230 pound defensive tackle would be getting looks from every program in the country if he was closer to 270. He's one of the most explosive linemen in the state and incredibly strong as well.

He was dominant at the NorCal Nike Camp last summer earning DL MVP honors over a strong group of lineman that included Bronson Kaufusi (BYU), Alex Turner (Stanford), Chris Martin (Cal) and Wesley Flowers (UCLA), to name a few.

That sounds good to me. I like this pickup for number of reasons. Right now we can't have enough guys at both DL and OL. Yates provides us with much needed personnel in the defensive frontline. I am sure coaches are going to be looking at taking as many as possible this year, because the trenches are places you want to stockpile players as much as possible. While we are waiting to hear from number of big time recruits such as Sealii Epenesa, Ego Ferguson, Owamagbe Odighizuwa, and Ricky Heimuli (while keeping tabs on Marsh and Uko), getting someone like Yates is huge. We should appreciate it. I also like the fact that it looks like we have a solid pipeline going with the talent from Fresno. I think that will always pay dividend down the line.

Also, speaking on the topic of recruiting obviously there has been a lot of conversation re. Brett Nottingham's (what appears to be strategic) decommitment from UCLA. We should wish the kid luck up at the firm. He is going to need it in a Stanford roster where he has already been recruited over in this class. However, I do think it is fair for UCLA recruiting junkies to take note of the comments he had made with a straight face about being totally committed to UCLA till the very end (See P's Nottingham thoughts). Hopefully as Nottingham goes through his college and professional career (who knows whether it will involved football) he will learn something about being honest and straight up with people in whatever career path he chooses to follow. On our end we are going to move on and I think we will ultimately be in decent shape at our QB spot. More after the jump.

It looks like the LA's traditional media is working over time to find smack talk from Neuheisel (even when he is not offering up anything) directed at Southern Cal. So enter Jill Painter (you know the airhead who recently wrote "Pete Carroll is everything that's right about college football. He is college football.") who wasted her column space taking note of CRN's comments at our hoops game:

"I guarantee, if you paid any kind of attention to what's going on in college football this last week, you can see the landscape is slightly shifting," Neuheisel told fans. "A few of our guys, we want to welcome coach Kiffin to Los Angeles. We have competed with him before and we look forward to competing with him and this program again."

Neuheisel is 1-0 against Kiffin, on the trash-talking scoreboard as well as on the field. UCLA beat Tennessee 19-15 in Knoxville this season, and it was the first time the two had met. They can exchange words without handshakes.

WTH? How the heck can any moron construe that as "trash talk." Apparently Jill wasn't done. She was determined to find a story. So she followed up to come up with this:

In an interview following his pep talk, Neuheisel didn't back down.

"We respect what USC has done the last few years," Neuheisel said.

"But there's change now. Until the new regime proves itself, we believe we have every right to claim this city."

Oooh. She found her head line. That apparently gave her enough ammo to come up with this creative headline for her worthless column "UCLA takes, makes at least one shot ... thanks to Neuheisel." Not going to give her any link.

So let me get this right. This is the same Daily News ignorant airhead who thinks Petey Carroll is "everything that's right with college football," who now sees "trash talking" in Neuheisel's simple comments about competing with Southern Cal. Sure enough she found enough traction with her worthless column to have people construe it as some kind of smacktalk. Whatever. Either way it is going to be fun going up against a Puppet Man-boy coach for the coming years. We are already off to a solid start.

Lastly, let's check in with an old friend. Jim Svoboda has a new gig:

The University of Central Missouri announced the hiring of its new football coach Friday, tabbing Jim Svoboda to lead the Mules.

Svoboda will be officially introduced at a press conference Tuesday.

"Jim has been a consistent winner everywhere he has been and is the perfect fit for our program and our institution," Central Missouri athletic director Jerry Hughes said. "His blend of success as an NAIA head coach, a championshipcaliber assistant in the MIAA and an assistant at the highest levels of college football, combined with his personality, work ethic and class should have Mules fans extremely excited for the future."

Svoboda comes to UCM after three years as assistant coach and quarterbacks coach at Football Championship Subdivision member Montana State, helping the Bobcats to top-25 ranking in 2009.

The 49-year-old served as UCLA's quarterbacks coach from 2004-06, helping lead the Bruins to three bowl games and only their seventh 10-win season. He served as the program's offensive coordinator in 2006. UCLA won the 2005 Sun Bowl and for his efforts, he was a finalist for the 2005 Broyles Award, presented to the nation's top assistant coach at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.

Was glad to read this. I hope it all works out for him. He always seemed like a nice guy. He was here at the wrong time under the wrong guy, with a program floundering without any direction. Glad those days are over.

GO BRUINS.