Good luck next week
by USCLink on Nov 19, 2011 10:51 PM PST
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PrintHere's hoping for a clean, injury free game, both from the players, and the fanbases. It's been an interesting season, but if ucla wins this game, it takes the Pac-12 south outright, so both teams have plenty to play for. Hope it lives up to billing, and hope we can avoid the ugliness the past few contests have provided, both on, and off of the field.
Fight on, and good luck.
USCLink
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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It's nice to have the rivalry game count for something besides bragging rights
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
I agree
But I appreciate the sentiment above. I can’t beleive what the heck is wrong with me but I have actually really enjoyed watching SC this year. Kiffin IMO is the runaway PAC12 COY.
by Nestor on Nov 20, 2011 5:40 AM PST via mobile up reply actions
have to agree.
they really brought it against, Notre Dame, Stanford and Oregon.
I still think Lane Violation is a moron, but I can’t argue with the eye test. USC is playing up to it’s ability. While we still hope from game to game that we will play up to our ability.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. ~ Vince Lombardi
honestly
this sort of comment from you – along with actually rooting for the trogans to win a game (!) – is probably the most damning evidence that exists about the current athletic administration at UCLA.
Hopefully they can act quickly and restore you to your normal self…
by VeniceBruin on Nov 20, 2011 11:11 AM PST up reply actions
Not gonna lie, so have I
I guess their staying relatively SCandal-free this year, mixed in with grinding through despite the NCAA punishments made SC much less hate-able this season. Lane is a doofus, but he’s got a decent football head on his shoulders… barf
Agreed N
It pains me to admit it, but Kiffin has done a fantastic job given the circumstances with which he has been presented. I had my doubts about him before, but at his age and with his coaching ability, SuC could be set for the next ten years.
It was a joy to watch SC take down the Ducks in their own house.
I really have grown a bitter taste for everything about the UO program, from their ever evolving “street” uniforms to their poor excuse for a basketball court which is pure hidium, and a shameless attempt at a home court advantage.
I long for the UCLA-USC game to have national implications. Everything about this game is right. The same city rivalry, the colors on the field, the weather in SoCal when it is usually cold and miserable in the east. The only thing wrong has been the competition that UCLA has been providing in the past decade. While a win next week would be great I am ambivalent about this feeling for fear of what it would do with our head coaching situation.
by 84 on Nov 20, 2011 7:10 AM PST reply actions 1 recs
+1
never thought anyones fanbase could supplant usc in the “arrogance” department. It WAS nice to see ou go down!
by GogetemBruins on Nov 20, 2011 9:43 AM PST up reply actions
God I hate to say this
as I’m sure it’s being said on the SC boards presently, but the fact is, the Pac-12 Championship was played last Saturday in Corvallis. And SC won. End of story.
I’m trying to recover now…
We're better off if we lose to SUC
Of course, I could see us STILL winning the South by Utah dropping an egg against hapless Colorado allowing us to back into the Championship game, only to get mauled by Oregon in the first ever game for all eternity and winding up bowl inelegible to boot.
Agreed +1
Hopefully every loss is a step backwards and two steps forward to finding a culture of positiveness and success in our sorry excuse for an athletic department.
by iLOATHEscFOREVER on Nov 24, 2011 8:39 AM PST up reply actions
+568237498645756548976594867549
Oh wow, just be glad you don’t live in an area mostly populated by Duck fans.
I disagree the game is meaningless.
Although I agree that DG has to go regardless what the result of this game. I do not agree that this game is meaningless. It’s SC v UCLA. It should always mean something. We cannot be apathetic. Although I expect them to destroy us, I hope for another 13-9.
Go Bruins.
I don't care about this game -- not at all
For the first time in 23 years of my time of following this program – I couldn’t care less what happens on Sat.
Agree... there are just bigger stakes afoot this season
I am one of the most rabid UCLA fan / $C anti-fans around… but they’ve been doing things all the right ways this season, while we’ve been doing everything completely the opposite. That has eclipsed any importance that this game presents in my mind and my heart.
I'm trying to feel that way
but it will be a challenge. I know when I’m watching that game I’ll be invested in it. If only so I don’t have to deal with another year of taking crap from all the SC fans I know.
But at the same time, it’s hard to really want to win when we know that a win could set the program back further.
by bucknellbruin on Nov 20, 2011 2:45 PM PST up reply actions
I'm pissed off too
However, there is just something fundamentally wrong with rooting against our Bruins. I want change too, but we are a proud school. If the die-hards on this site are mailing it in, how can we expect the student body, alumni and fan base to give a damn? I have to believe that we have talent on both our BB and FB teams. We just need the right coaches to coach them up. We need to be the “gutty lil Bruins” again. To me that meant, we might not be as talented, but you were in for a dog fight when you played us.
I for one, will be wearing my UCLA pin on my uniform lapel all week. Call me stupid or delusional, I have to support my school.
Go Bruins! Beat SC!
Of course not rooting against us
I am just not emotionally invested in this game.
by Nestor on Nov 20, 2011 12:05 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
I hear you
I try to do the same. But it still stings when they lose. It pisses me off when we get embarrassed and especially am in a foul mood when we lose to sc. Even if its underwater basket weaving-I want to beat sc!
by PasadenaBruin on Nov 20, 2011 12:07 PM PST up reply actions
It was different in 2007
Karl Dorrell WAS legitimately detrimental to our football program; those 2006 and 2007 teams should have been contending for conference titles, not barely strugging to break even at the end of the season. So going into the SC game in ‘07, it was a “if we win, Dorrell stays; if we lose, Dorrell goes” game. Those were the stakes, and that’s where the whole “is it ever okay to root against your favorite team against your biggest rival?” debate first started. I would say that most people came down on the side of “What are you kidding?! We have to root for UCLA no matter what!” but I could legitimately see the potential for wavering there. This situation is different, I believe; I think that Rick should be fired, but I won’t lose sleep if he’s not. (Dan is the one who absolutely needs to go, IMO, and the outcome of this game won’t affect his decision at all.) In 2007, Karl Dorrell ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY ABSOLUTELY needed to go, hence our wavering. So we should all have no problems rooting for UCLA, although some of us may have more interest in the game than others (justifiably, given that it’s one of the more meaningless games in the rivalry’s history).
Question, 139
If CTS ABSOLUTELY, ABSOLUTELY, ABSOLUTELY had to go in 2007, how can you say you won’t lose sleep if his successor is retained, given that his successor has done MUCH MUCH MUCH worse? He has underperformed his predecessor in just about any and every way. Worse, he has underperformed his talent. If we had an athletic director who was not viewing his surroundings through a porthole in his navel, CTSS would have been gone already.
I disagree
There is absolutely no question that the 2010 team had talent, and that this team has talent. But Dorrell’s 2006 and 2007 teams had numerous NFL players on both sides of the ball, one of the best defenses in the conference, and an uptick in recruiting prowess due to the 10-2 season in 2005. Rick was left with a bare cupboard and a third-string JUCO transfer quarterback in 2008, and after struggling that year got a great recruiting class and improved significantly in 2009. Even through five games of the 2010 season Rick’s popularity was an all-time high. It was then, and only then, that he started to fall completely apart and the team started being lazy and underachieving. Still…I am NOT saying that the 2010 team and this team did/do not have talent. That has been a common Neub argument over the last several months, and it has been disproven time and time again in numerous posts. But IMO, Dorrell had FAR more talent; we absolutely absolutely should have been competing with SC for the Pac-10 title in ‘06 and ’07, and under Dorrell we went 13-12. Just off the top of my head, I can think of three games each year that Dorrell probably cost us with dumb decisions and the players coming out unfocused and unmotivated (Washington, Notre Dame, FSU in 2006; Utah, Notre Dame, Washington State in 2007). While these Neub teams have been talented, in my opinion Dorrell’s last two teams had FAR more talent, in a weaker conference, and were phenomenal disappointments. That’s where I think the difference lies: there was NO excuse for Dorrell in 2007, while in Rick’s case there are some excuses that do hold water (though most of the ones the Neubs typically throw out there are inaccurate and not based in fact).
Well, that's certainly food for thought
The Conventional Wisdom has been that the CTS teams after the 10-2 aberration were talentless, and indeed one of the great excuses for the first 4-8 season under our current coach was the notion that CTS left the cupboard bare when he left. I’m not prepared to say you’re wrong, because CTSS has shown no ability to coach up the performance of any of our players (or at least none that I can think of off hand.)
The more I re-read this, though, the less I really understand it. Maybe it’s me, and I’m getting footballed out at this point in the weekend.
Correction
I didnt mean to insinuate anyone was rooting against us. Just wanted to say we cannot stop caring and be indifferent about the game. Somewhere out there, two small colleges will sell out a 5000 person stadium because they have a rivalry.
Go Bruins!
If we win...
If we beat USC, and then either put up a hell of a fight or win the PAC-12 Championship game do you let CRN keep his job?
I know beating SC counts for a lot as UCLA’s coach. And I think if CRN pulled it off I feel like it very well could be that “corner” that everyone’s been mentioning all season.
But this is just a hypothetical. I fully expect USC to demolish us the way they’ve been playing recently, and this is their last game of the season, so I’m sure they’ll be coming out with some fire.
There is no corner to be turned
Only a Neub thinks there is a corner to be turned.
by Nestor on Nov 20, 2011 12:06 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
There's always a corner
Just because it’s extremely unlikely that we get there doesn’t mean it’s not there. This is a hypothetical situation, and I’m just trying to gauge what it would take from Rick to save his job.
Neuheisel story is over
The line in the sand has been crossed. We have made that clear.
by Nestor on Nov 20, 2011 12:16 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
I think that maybe there could be a corner eventually
If DG and Rick are unfortunately retained, then I believe a well played, 8-10 win season next year would qualify as a turned corner. But I don’t want that to have a chance to happen, because I agree that Rick should not have a job next year. I’m just saying that if it comes down to him being UCLA’s football coach next year, I could see there being a turned corner if the team performs well.
Not that I’m expecting that to happen. And without question there are NO corners that can be turned this season.
by bucknellbruin on Nov 20, 2011 2:48 PM PST up reply actions
The only way UCLA can justify bringing back Neuheisel ...
… if we win the Rose Bowl. That’s about it. Otherwise even getting to the Rose Bowl is not going to be good enough for me this season given the overall disgraceful losses from this season and the past ones.
But that (winning the Rose Bowl) is not going to happen.
There is no point in talking about next year
Next year does not exist for Rick. It should not exist for Dan either.
I agree there may be a corner eventually
and I think we agree that Rick’s eventually won’t come soon enough.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
I think Rick's running along the wrong wall searching for his corner
wrong wall as in, something akin to the Great Wall of China
He'd have to cure cancer
And achieve world peace. Even then I’d lobby for him to be Chancellor, but still not our football coach.
Two points.
I always want just$c* to lose at everything, every time. I don’t care if a win by them helps us. I want them to lose. I don’t care who they play. If they’re playing the Satan and all his demonic hordes, I want them to lose. There is no set of circumstances under which I would want just$c* to win. Period.
The great sportsmanship you see being exhibited by the trOJies has nothing to do with them and everything to do with us. We’re so absolutely irrelevant they just don’t care about us. We’re a bug on their windshield. We don’t even merit their scorn or derision. Have you seen a trogan troll on this site in the past year? The program has diminished so bad that they don’t even bother mocking us.
I won’t watch the game. I’ll tivo it, then erase it after Mrs. Fox 71 tells me whether I want to watch or not. Just as I have erased 14 out the last 15 or whatever that statistic is. But I will care about it, enough so that the only way I can handle it physically is to know in advance how it’s going to come out. And in a sense, I know that I’ll be erasing this one, also.
I honestly still wouldn't lose sleep over Rick staying another year.
I want a new coach, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t believe that this is a “Dorrell in 2007” type scenario; Dorrell was legitimately KILLING teams that were talented enough to make the BCS through stupid decision making and failure to motivate our players for certain games that led to poor effort and worse execution (i.e., there was NO excuse for us losing the Washington and Notre Dame and Florida State games in 2006, and even less excuse for 44-6 and Notre Dame again in 2007). I think that Dan is the one who is killing our football program and UCLA athletics in general; HE’S the main villain in all this, and he needs to go. Rick…I’d prefer it if he left but I wouldn’t flip out if he stayed. What if Hundley turns out to be the perfect quarterback for the pistol offense, but the new coach decides not to run it and never takes advantage of Hundley’s main strength? I don’t know…I’m probably just delusional because I’m a sucker for Rick’s backstory and still want him to make it here, despite overwhelming evidence that he’s already more than failed. I am a total sucker, I admit it.
Agree 100% about Hundley and Neu
I’m not losing sleep about Neu leaving because I doubt DG would go too. And therefore I don’t know who would be the replacement, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be fired up on him. That brings up your – IMO excellent – point about Hundley. He’s supposedly the guy to make this pistol offense go. QB is the most important position on the field and it could be the difference of 3+ games if he’s that good.
Am I excited about Neu staying? No. But I’m not excited about his potential replacement, either, given my lack of faith in our athletic department. So, as you say, I’m not losing sleep over it. I think next year’s all about Hundley.
If Hundley were the perfect QB for this system, why has he not played at all this year?
Rick knew his job was on the line. Even if Hundley struggled as a true freshman, he would have improved over the course of the year to the point that if he were the true football messiah; everyone would recognize this and forgive the losses as growing pains.
Even the data points used to praise The Rick, in fact, damn him. He has shown me he is a conservative coward by his play calling. (See the 4th and 1 to close the half in last years Crosstown Rivalry game) He has shown me he is bumbling fool when it comes to managing the playing time of his best players. In my opinion, he has put handcuffs on Joe Tresey much as it was reported he had handcuffed Norm Chow.
The Rick has to go. And, if God is great, Dan Guerrero will precede him.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. ~ Vince Lombardi
My thoughts exactly on Hundley
He should’ve been playing early and often. It baffles me that CRN sat his most important UCLA recruit on the bench just because he’s a freshman. That, of course, leads in to the more general topic of playing upperclassmen simply because they’re upperclassmen. His personnel decisions are just confusing to me.
He missed the bulk of the late summer practices
and hasn’t looked as good as Brehaut or Prince. Putting in a true frosh QB with few pre season practice reps seems like a recipe for failure to me. I actually respect that we preserved Hundley’s shirt this year.
yeah I was thinking the same thing
Maybe by playing Hundley in his freshmen state, he would’v’e GUARANTEED his firing LOLOL – jk
But to echo a lot of other people’s comments here – I also would not lose sleep if Neuheisel stayed another year. The evidences point to his leaving, but I personally feel like if I were to compare Neu to DG, Neu actually gives a damn about our program and actually wants, honest to god, for UCLA to become relevant again. Even if he may not be able to do so.
Now take DG, who’s even MORE apathetic and LESS give-a-damn about UCLA athletics. THAT sh*t really bothers me. #$!T!#%#^ REPLACE DG with NEUHEISEL and hire Urban Meyer goddamn it!
Perect Scenario
We beat sc, DG and CRN are fired and we make solid hires at both positions. Then CBH gets his team’s act together.
Regardless of which side you root for the Crosstown Showdown is a great tradition.
We (Trojan and Bruins) fans have one of the best rivalries in College Sports. Its awesome to see both teams in their home colors. I second Links hopes for a good game.
that would be a shame -- its a neat feature
I think its silly that the Pac 12 (10 whatever) does not do more to showcase our (USC / UCLA) rivalry game. Its every bit as good (and heated) as any in the nation. Its a great advertisement for the conference (if your watching it in the cold country who wouldn’t want to come to Los Angeles). It has featured some of the best players in college football history (on both sides) and its historically competitive. It should be the Pac’s marquee game — like the SEC has the Iron Bowl and the Big Ten has Michigan – Ohio State. Its traditions — like the unis — should be supported.
I've heard that UCLA is wearing white
Don’t know if it’s official though.
I’m pulling for both to wear home unis (and sacrifice the timeout if need be).
Fight On! Beat everybody but us!
Yep
Same here. We are also hearing SC is going to wear black unis. I agree that we should both go with home unis. I wish UCLA just went with the classic unis and gold helmets from 2 years ago.
by Nestor on Nov 20, 2011 6:29 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Kiffin says USC is wearing traditional uni's last I heard.
We’ll see though.
Fight On! Beat everybody but us!
If USC goes with an alternate Uni
it will not sit well with at least 80% of the fans. Seeing the Cardinal and Gold vs the Blue and Gold just looks cool.
Which is how it should be.
Each fan base thinking “Cool!” and “Yuck!” at the same time.
greg in denver, U.C.L.A. guy for life - BruinsNation.com
Exactly
Although as a Trojan, I have always thought UCLA’s colors are pretty cool — its a good look. I reserve yuck for the Ducks highlighter yellow unis or whatever it is that Maryland wears these days.
I really must be getting old.
I never thought I would agree with a TrOJan. At first, I thought I must be wrong, so I reexamined my thinking, but in fact ilium is right. The Oregon uniforms are horrible, and the alleged uniforms worn by Maryland are worse.
It would be a nice gesture for Oregon and Maryland to tell Nike thanks, but only one uniform next year, and please take the money they don’t spend on making silly looking uniforms and donate it to the general scholarship fund. My guess (semi-educated at best) is that Nike or any of those companies spend $500K to supply uniforms to the over-indulgent schools like Oregon and Maryland. How about putting that money to a good community use instead, or giving it to one of those organizations that drills wells for villages in third world countries.
I would be happy to team up with a trogan, ilium, on a task like that. (Now, we have to figure out what to do with those trogan uniforms.)
I agree
It would be better if they used that money for something productive rather than ensuring that Oregon has 100,000 different combinations of ugly. However, I doubt there is anything we could say that would convince Phil Knight to be a more responsible citizen of the world. Hey, I like my Cardinal and Gold, and if we changed it, what would you guys have to make fun of?
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