Spaulding Roundup: "Cleared" Prince, Depth Chart Tweaks & Other UCLA Notes

Obviously the coaches (and Nestor) think otherwise, but it doesn’t seem to me the Bruins lose much when they swap Prince for Brehaut. After all, last weekend Brehaut guided the team to a 42-point performance. True, that was against WSU, but at this point in their development neither Prince nor Brehaut is on a level with several other QBs in the conference. Prince is the better runner, but not by much (the stats show they have similar speed). Brehaut is the better passer. Either one of them can move the Bruins’ offense thanks to the Filthy Five, JF and DC. The key to the game is more likely to be the defense. That and TOs and what I’ll call “the breaks” (i.e., officials’ calls). Should be a great game!

Were there not better ones out there who wanted the job? I don’t get it. Was it $? I am not clear on this. His schemes and game coaching are so ineffective, except at TX.

I think Bullough is a capable DC who is basically trying to work with a bunch of young inexperienced guys. We have a handful of stars mixed with a handful of rookies. It doesn’t take much for the defense to get burned when we have inexerienced guys on the field.

Like some have said, if the defensive schemes are executed correctly, it should work. However if they are routinely not being executed correctly, should Chuck B change gameplans and start blitzing or try to get the D to execute the original gameplan?

I do agree that the in-game adjustments have been too slow. With a team like WSU, it would be a perfect time for Chuck B to be ultra aggressive, even right off the bat. We’re not good enough to play a base D an entire game, not even against a lowly team. If Chuck B can come to grips with that, our defensive scheme should always be either aggressive or super aggressive. The PAC is loaded with talented QB’s … we just have to knock them down more often ;)

I’m not saying that we have an awesome defense, but I think we need to cut them a little slack.

1) They gave up points against Stanford and KSU because they were on the field for too long (the offense wasn’t clicking at that point, and there was a big TOP disparity)

2) They have 14 sacks, good for 9th in the country

3) This is still a young and relatively inexperienced unit. I think it’s too much to ask them to be the number #1 defense in the conference at this moment. We need to be patient.

In his resume, it says his D’s had the most turnovers caused in the NFL. That was an earlier issue with us, but now seems to be less of one. It could raise its head again if they do not pay extra attention to that. Your post placed criticism of Bullough in the WSU game. I was agreeing with it. The team on the field plays the game and not him, but he is there to provide in game change of strategy when necessary.

It went something like, “If we are who we say we are, these are the types of games that we need to win.”

Cal has been a mid to upper tier PAC 10 team for a while. They are talented, well coached, and will be at home this week after a bye. I do not expect a win, but I really like CRN’s attitude. He is challenging his team to go out and win a game that they are not expected to win.

What does the team say they are? CRN has been declaring since the media day that he wants his team to be able to compete for the PAC 10 championship. In order to do so, you have to be able to win games like the upcoming game vs. Cal.

I am not delusional about this year’s squad. A new offense (which happens to be one of my favorites and makes me giddy just watching because I’ve secretly hoped that it would be implemented for years) was installed over the offseason and there will undoubtedly be hiccups. We have had immensely talented incoming recruiting classes over the past couple of years, but they are still green and filling a serious talent vacuum left by the previous administration. To date, we lost one out of conference game I expected to win, won one out of conference game I expected to lose, and won one out of conference that I thought was a tossup before I watched and realized that I should have expected to win. We were blown out by a conference opponent after losing confidence due to an inability to move the ball, and we beat a conference opponent after regaining confidence that was lost due to the inability to stop the ball. Simply put, our team is young and inconsistent.

Despite the youth and inconsistency, I see a confident team for the first time in a while. Over the first two years, CRN was content with hanging around. The scores were held closer than I often expected, but besides the games vs. Tennessee, the outcomes were essentially as predicted. CRN’s statement, to me, means that the team thinks they can go out and win the games they shouldn’t.

I can’t wait for this weekend.

to develop some sort of feel for this game, studying Cal’s stats, game notes and so forth, without really being able to come to much of a conclusion. They lost a shoot-out at Nevada, then held Arizona to one late-game touchdown, while not putting up a TD themselves. Their stats are much influenced by extremes and not of much use to us. I do remember how they exploited our defense last year, and thought that they had scouted us perfectly, to the point that they completely understood what we did, could do, and would do. Of course, I don’t really know that, but we are significantly different on D this year anyway. My take on our Washington State performance is that we experienced a drop off in energy and focus from the Texas thing, and I think that applies not only to the players but to the coaches as well. I know, more unsupported theorizing, but these levels do vary from week to week. That is observable. Cal has had the bye week, and needed it. No doubt they have been able to forget two losses and concentrate on the task at hand, so they should be at a high level. We survived WSU and did well enough to win, racking up a lot of yards. The D made a couple of mighty stands and that was enough. I think we will be on an upward curve this week and should perform well at Cal. This will be a true test of our pistol, and I am glad that Prince will be back, since he is crisper and more authoritative than Brehaut, in my view. Nothing against Brehaut, who did well in his first real chance. I am counting on Riley having a couple of poor series, at least. He is an up and down performer. So I think we are going to do well and that ball control, aided by some improved passing, will prevail. The D has to regain some physicality and start “flying around,” in the words of Akeem.

Prince doesn’t get adequate practice time because he is injury-prone. His impressive injury credentials extend back to high school. Everybody is praying Prince can play Saturday and in the weeks to come, whereas I see it as almost a certainty that he will get injured (again) and then Brehaut will be our guy, like it or not. That may seem pessimistic, but if you’re driving a car that’s prone to breakdowns, it makes sense to have a second car and to keep it in good running condition. Prince’s inability to play vs. WSU was a blessing in disguise. It gave Brehaut game experience he never would have had if the coaches hadn’t been forced to use him.