Spaulding Roundup: Thoughts On "QB Drama" & Other UCLA Notes

Just sayin….

i think prince has the potential to be a pretty good qb in the pac-10. but, with all his injuries it will be nearly impossible for our offense to be consistent enough to reach it’s full potential. no doubt prince is a gamer … i just wonder if he can stay healthy during the season.

hope the coaches are seriously considering giving smith & jones more playing time and touches. while i like franklin in the backfield i think jones has the potential to bring back memories of hicks & foster … a back that can break tackles. using embree to fair catch punts was “safe” but the choice hints at “playing not to lose”. it’s obvious smith has the potential to break a game open … get him more touches!

jus my $0.02

up until the first snap of the game. I saw Prince and that was it, I was in “Camp Prince” then. All I mean by that is that CRN and CNC are going to try to give us the best chance to win and whatever they choose we should back them (and whatever qb they choose) 100%.
Just curious, what shoulder is that?

Re: CRN and the Quarterback Situation….This is It Kids…Football is Not a Populatrity Contest, but a Tactical Endevour, Therefore when Kevin Prince was throwing short or long or over the recievers CRN and NC should take that as Fact and Swith QB’s just to see if that would help…I was Dumbstruck that Brehaut was NOT in starting the 2nd Half. It makes No sense to stick wtih the Field General when he is Not Up to the Task at Hand. This is a Game to be won and we certainly could have Won had some minor adjustments been implemented. Football is a Fluid Game you Must make Adjustments as the Game Progresses otherwise you Will Loose. This is Not a Popularity Contest but a Game to Be Won and Not Frittered Away Like the KSU Game was! You Play to Win or Don’t Play At ALL!

At the time, I thought it was surprising Brehaut didn’t get in the game at all on Saturday, partly because of Prince’s struggles, partly because they have lifted Prince for Brehaut before, and partly because CRN had said in advance that he would. (ok I guess, the moral is that telling untruths to the media and, by extension, the fanbase can be justified as gamesmanship; I think there’s a difference between being cagey and saying something that is a bald-faced lie, but that’s just me)

Looking back at it, it may be that he has learned a lesson. 2 years ago, Kevin Craft had an abysmal first half against Tennessee, threw multiple picks and put us in a huge hole; CRN stuck with him, built him up and he came back to lead us to victory. Last season, with Prince struggling, CRN tried to get Brehaut into the game (against CNC’s opinion, IIRC), and it blew up in his face.

Additionally, there are another couple of things in the KSU game – 1) parts of the offense were working fine, it is the QB’s job to manage the run game, change plays if necessary, etc, and our offense looked fine apart from failures to connect on pass plays [and, for all the talk about Brehaut’s passes in the scrimmage, that is only part of the QBs job]

2) when would you really lift Prince in that game? We were up at the half, and with the receivers having been equally culpable. We didn’t need to come out at the start of the second half launching bombs, we needed to play solid defense and keep managing a game that we were winning despite misfires in the passing game. Also, with the heavy KSU reliance on the running game, the game gets shorter, and you don’t have the same luxury of putting someone else in for a couple of series as an experiment.

And, as other people have alluded to, the decision to stick with Prince may have been with one eye to the Stanford game. With Prince as QB, the game on Saturday was perfectly winnable if a) Prince had improved b) the receivers had caught everything that came their way c) the defense had had more of an answer to KSU’s ground game.

I’m in Team UCLA; I don’t care who plays QB. I don’t see how anyone can passionately be in Team Prince or Team Brehaut based on what we have seen from both last year and this. If we had won Saturday there wouldn’t be this consternation, and if we beat Stanford on Saturday a lot of it will evaporate. Go Bruins.

This is not a “trust the coaches” post. The problem is, I’m not at practice, I’m not watching film of practice, so I don’t feel I have the information to judge this. The coaches do. I don’t know if they’re making the right decision, because coaches, just like anyone else, can make mistakes, can have favorites, can and likely do have cognitive biases. I just don’t have the information to make such a judgment. If anyone has been to a lot of practices, that information would be welcome.

Look, right now after one game both QB options we have are not ideal. RB has no real game experience, who knows how he would have played in Prince’s place. It could have been far worse. At least with Prince we were still in the game and hopefully can build onto next week. He is still the stronger choice until we see more from him in the next few weeks.

That being said, the kid so far is “fragile”. Seems to get injured often during his career. At the moment he is healthy enought to play, lets see what he can do. If he keeps getting hurt, can’t practice, looks horrible on the field next few weeks, then yes true discussions about him being replaced can be made. Right now the coaches believe in him as the best choice. Lets back him up and hopefully win a few games to make all this moot point.

GO BRUINS! (Is it saturday yet?)

The team was not far off from winning at KSU. A few more first downs is really all it would have taken, IMO. Those first downs would have extended drives, led to some more points, but more importantly, kept KSU and their running game off the field.

Given the final score, it is easy to forget that the game was nearly tied with under two minutes to play. Had the 2 point conversion play been successful, we might all be singing a different tune.

I’m not buying the injury prone argument. KP suffered a freak broken jaw against Tennessee, which could have happened to anyone. He suffered a shoulder injury when he was tackled awkwardly against USC, which could have happened to anyone. He suffered a right knee injury in high school, which is common. The oblique strain/muscle tear during this summer is the only injury that wasn’t an ordinary football injury.

That said, I’m a firm believer that practice reps are irreplaceable, but only the staff really knows how the chemistry of the team is. The staff makes the call regarding who will put the team in the best position to win. I am not ready to second guess CRN and Co. at this point, and I trust him to play the players most likely to succeed.

try to take a stab at this from a somewhat different angle, I’m not necessarily certain this is all about “Camp Brehaut” v. “Camp Prince”. I’m certainly not advocating that Brehaut start because of Prince’s one poor outing this year.

However, I think what is troubling a lot of individuals is the cotinued ‘nagging’ injuries that Prince appears to do with on an almost weekly basis. These ‘nagging’ injuries limit his practice time, and then when he gets to a game, he performs poorly as a result of the lack of practice. From there, the excuse becomes “Well, it was because he was dealing with an injury during the week.”

At some point, if he’s dealing with an injury every week, that has to start becoming part of the calculation of an objective review of his performance. Yes, Prince looked good during last season in the three weeks where he was fully recovered and didn’t have a nagging injury. However, it is beginning to look like that period of time in which he was perfectly healthy was an aberration, and not what we should ‘normally’ expect out of Prince. At some point, the coaches need to take this in to consideration.

Now, I’m certainly not advocating that we replace Prince with Brehaut, but I certainly hope the coaches consider adjusting their approach to the QB position if Prince is hurt or dealing with ‘nagging’ injuries again for the bulk of this season.

I’m not questioning Prince’s ability to perform when fully healthy, but at some point his inability to remain healthy on a week-to-week basis has to become a calculation in any QB competition.