A Realistic Perspective
Like all alumni and fans, I'm excited —thrilled, actually — with the announcement that Ellis McCarthy is coming to UCLA. And I'm just as excited by some of the other recruits, as well as those on the horizon. But as many front-pagers have said repeatedly, recruiting is just one part of the formula for success. And while Mora has made all the right moves so far, we need to temper our enthusiasm with the knowledge that Neuheisel was a great recruiter, too. So, at least for me, I'm waiting to see whether Mora plays the most talented athletes or follows the path of Neuheisel, who seemed to give undue weight to experience. A case in point is Datone Jones. Based on his play last year, he shouldn't start. He may be 100 percent better this year, of course. But I'm waiting to see how Mora decides on the starters, along with whom he picks as his defensive coordinator. Go Bruins.
4 months ago
bruinfollower
25 comments
0 recs |
Email
PrintComments
Yep - extremely encouraged with recruiting and ...
… the way Mora is putting together his staff. I also like his moves wrt to suspensions of players. However, he and his staff need to put it together with a solid season next year. 6-7 win season will not do. We will be looking for a win over Southern Cal at home and a 8-9 win regular season in which the Bruins are “firing out” (in the words of Chianti) every game.
N - is the win over SC a must to the frontpagers?
Not criticizing, just asking. Obviously they’re our rival and we’ve lost far more than is acceptable to them in the past 15 years. It will be critical for Mora to beat SC more than he loses to them over his tenure. But this year will require a win over the likely preseason #1 (or 2). Seems like a pretty large expectation to absolutely require. Should it be competitive? Yes. But as much as I hate to admit it, they’re gonna have a damn good team in South Central next fall.
by bucknellbruin on Jan 17, 2012 12:42 PM PST up reply actions
Yes
I would also add if any Bruin is going to concede that game now and looking to be happy with a “true moral victory” this will not be the place for them.
not conceding
it was just a question. And I hate “moral victories”. I was just curious if it was a must-win
by bucknellbruin on Jan 17, 2012 12:48 PM PST up reply actions
We have to beat $c
I see your perspective bucknellbruin and I respect that. $c might have a good team next year, but I always want and expect UCLA to beat $c not just in football but in any sport as well. I would like for our new coaching staff to change things around for the better just like they have done for recruiting. This change alone should have a boost to our program. Beating $c is in my DNA.
by Trueblue'09 on Jan 17, 2012 4:54 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
I understand where the criticism of Datone is coming from since he was supposed to be a game-changer and be an All-American/Pac-12.
But he still unquestionably had the best season of any defensive lineman on the roster. I feel like he is getting penalized more than any other player publicly for not living up to unrealistic expectations.
"I have one word for you...Be careful."
-Jose Guillen
boooo!!!!
it’s so much funner, as a fan, to be exited!
by UCLA_beer&mathematics on Jan 17, 2012 1:45 PM PST reply actions
Agree with Nestor
A win against SC is a must. Why? Since 1999 we have won just one game in the rivalry series. With SC facing scholarship restrictions for the next few years we must capitalize and build some momentum. This means beating SC at the Rose Bowl.
That's borderline offensive
to cheese and monkeys
How do you see UCLA?
True, we haven’t won much since 1999. But we haven’t been good in that time frame. If you see UCLA as capable of being a good team you might be happy with .500 against the trogans. But if you believe UCLA is capable of being an elite team in the college football landscape, we should be getting the best of our hated rival more often than not.
by Westwood is the best wood on Jan 17, 2012 4:31 PM PST up reply actions
Agree that a win against SC is a must...
but with regard to our win in 2006… what a savory win that was! A win that kept USC out of BCS championship game!
uclak
Not even to spring practice yet
so speculation is heavily weighted to the pipe dream side. The biggest change I would like to see is consistency in effort and execution. Aside from name only, the team that played SC wasn’t the same team that played Oregon. Not saying we would have beaten SC even at our best, but playing consistently at our best, we should have beaten 3 other teams, including Illinois, Utah and Houston. A 9 win season sure beats the 6-8 debacle we ended up with. I think consistent, maximum effort is what this new staff will demand and get and that is a major change to the good.
Channeling Yoda
may not work all that well here in the real world. Coach Mora isn’t exactly taking the reins of a Pac 12 powerhouse. I do expect immediate improvement the first year, including a solid winning record. I expect an allout team effort to win every game. I expect, win or lose, opposing teams to crawl home beat up, knowing they were in a real dogfight.
I am under no illusion that we will run the table including the Trojans, in the first year of Coach Mora’s tenure. He deserves a fair shot to make things right, after a decade of things gone very wrong.
It is a fair shot
The schedule is weak. Mora will beat Southern Cal next year or his year will be a failure.
If those kinds of expectations scare you
On someone getting paid twice as much as his predecessor and as one of the most highly compensated coaches in the conference with a roster full of talent, then this is not the place for you. The time for excuses has passed. Mora needs to deliver. Not down the road. Next year.
Having spent some quality time
in Iraq; not much scares me. The sins of the father do not pass down to the son in this situation. The other coaches failed miserably before him, so Coach Mora now must now pay for their inadequacies? No, that is not a fair shot; that’s an ultimatum, but you’re welcome to your own opinion. This “loaded with talent” bowl team managed to post the worst record in NCAA bowl team history. Way too many of these talented players could not find it within themselves to play their guts out every game, with pride, heart and the will to win. They all couldn’t man up for college football’s greatest rivalry game? Seriously? Pathetic way to “represent”; nothing at all like the famous gutty little SC beating Bruins teams I grew up with.
At some point you have to look beyond the coaching, to assess the player’s personal accountability and commitment to perform at their highest level. Coaches can coach, but it’s the players that play on gameday. Guts, grit and drive comes from within; it’s character, not talent. Talent without that character is meaningless. I honestly don’t know what this team is made of internally. We won’t know until their first real test against a highly ranked and very solid Nebraska team.
Perhaps, this is not the place for those players who lack the character Coach Mora is demanding.
Sounds like the expectations do scare you
Because you’ve lined up to make excuses for failure. You’re ready to pump up Mora’s ability as a coach based on who he’s hired and who he’s flipped from other schools and basically everywhere except in the accountability department. Mora may very well turn around the culture of UCLA Football and his team, but it appears that the lowball, mediocre, settle-for-less culture is alive and well among our fanbase.
As I said
you’re entitled to your opinion. Your assessment of this team as it currently stands differs from mine. Coach Mora has been on the job officially all of two weeks or so, but it’s been a dynamic period of time. Until he has had time to weed out those who don’t fit his culture and put into place those players who do, all I have to analyze is past player and team performance. That existing body of work isn’t exactly stellar. It’s clear to me Coach Mora has identified significant weaknesses (what you apparently call ‘excuses for failure’) in this team and is moving to address those weaknesses. Coaching certainly was one of those weaknesses. He and his staff are wholly accountable for what they accomplish in that regard. How successfully Coach Mora can shore up those weaknesses in the first year remains to be seen. It’s not like the NFL where you can go out and trade for or immediately pick up an upgrade. As for the players Coach Mora has recruited or flipped from other programs, true freshman starters are not common. We don’t yet know how much of an impact this recruiting class will have in the first year.
I won’t be able to reassess this team until the staff has had time to work. We will know within the first few games of next season where we will be as a squad. When we can decisively beat those teams we should beat, then beat the team we are expected to lose to, we will be on the right track to humbling the Loudmouths of Troy with regularity.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
