Bruin Bites: Football Notes, Kyle Anderson at Hoophall Classic, Even Calipari "Gets It" Re: UCLA Hoops, Osweiler to UCLA?
It's Wednesday, so we're halfway to the weekend, which will fortunately be free of the disaster that is UCLA football. That said, we'll be subjected to some torture with Ben Howland's dumpster fire squad in action against the Arizona schools, starting with the Wildcats on Thursday, followed by the Sun Devils on Saturday. Let's jump right into the Bruin Bites since we have a lot of ground to cover in this mid-week edition.
Here's your bits and pieces of news from around the UCLA-iverse:
- Starting with football, obviously the biggest news are the rumors that Arizona State QB Brock Osweiler is working on graduating prior to the next season to take advantage of the NCAA's graduate student transfer rule, allowing him to immediately join his new team immediately. With Osweiler's favored offensive coach set to join the Bruins' staff, the rumors that Osweiler may follow Noel Mazzone to Westwood have picked up. If Osweiler does follow Mezzone to Westwood, it'd be ironic, given that the beat-down he put on the Bruins two years ago led him to committing to football 100% of the time.
- Sticking with football, UCLA lost out on a prized defensive recruit out of Hawaii, four-star DE DeForest Buckner from Punahou, per Greg Biggins at ESPN (portion not behind subscription firewall). After narrowing his choices to Oregon, Cal, and UCLA, the Hawaiian stand-out went with Oregon, which will increase pressure on Mora and his staff to try to reel in Ellis McCarthy, a player UCLA should easily have gotten, had Neuheisel not cratered the program.
- Biggins (also not behind subscription firewall) is also reporting some comments from UCLA defensive back commit Jerico Richardson about greyshirting this upcoming year. From the quotes, it sounds like Mora and his team have already started the conversation and Richardson is receptive to it, and with the glut of prospects UCLA is still in the game for plus the numbers already committed, every available slot helps. Sounds like a great kid and team player to be willing to do it.
- Fox Sports re-printed a L.A. Times piece from Foster that has a handful of Mora quotes, which we've discussed before on BN. ICYMI, you can see a short recap of it here, and suffice to say, Mora is saying the right things and sounds like he plans on setting a new tone and attitude about football at UCLA. Hopefully Chianti Dan, the bumbling buffoon of Morgan Center, doesn't screw this up.
- Last quick note on football: ESPN profiled HS senior QB Tanner Mangum, one of the top QB prospects in the West and a BYU commit. Mangum, however, has deferred his enrollment to BYU to go on his LDS mission, much like Xavier Su'a Filo did after his freshman year. ESPN, of course, made the obvious comparison to UCLA's Ben Olson. If we somehow end up with Mangum in 2 years, two thoughts: (1) I'll begin wondering if this is going to be a trend for us and (2) this kid's last name is awesome.
- Turning to basketball (LOL), ESPN has an updated Pac-12 conference power rankings, and of course, UCLA is disappointingly in the middle of the pack at #8 (sandwiched between WSU at #7 and U$C at #9). On the plus side, we're not Utah. On the negative side, we're John Wooden's school, so total facepalm.
- Speaking of UCLA, the brand, in the world of college hoops, even Calipari understands that UCLA is the name in college basketball, using the Bruins as an example of the kind of big-name team that fans in Kentucky want to see the Wildcats take on in their annual game at Freedom Hall in Louisville. I wonder when Chianti Dan and our athletic department will realize that, since we're stuck with an inadequate renovation and beat-up facilities.
- On the bright side, at least we're getting super-talented prospect Kyle Anderson next season, who is a solid commit to UCLA and who has been actively recruiting other guys to join him in Westwood. ICYMI, here's some highlights of Anderson from the recent Hoophall Classic this past week.
- If you want to rub some salt in the wounds of our basketball team, look no further than Colorado. One of their starting guards is true freshman Spencer Dinwiddie, who was a UCLA prospect to lose last year. Of course, Howland got enamored with big name players, all of whom he struck out on, letting Dinwiddie slip to the Buffaloes. Of course, following in the style of other guys who should be in a UCLA uniform (Mike Moser, Chace Stanback, etc.), Dinwiddie scored 19 points for Colorado in their Pac-12 opening blow-out of Utah (73-33), while chipping in 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 2 steals in 26 minutes (oh, and with no turnovers). As the L.A. Times calls it, Howland's failure to get to recruiting Dinwiddle until too late was a big mistake. Kind of like Moser. And Stanback. And so on, and so on...
Alright folks, those are your mid-week edition of Bruin Bites as we count down the days until the weekend. Fire away with your thoughts, additions, and comments in the thread.
GO BRUINS
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Read on twitter that Oswiler is concidering NFL options not transfering
Per Pac-12 rules, even as a grad student you have to sit out a year if you transfer within the conference
Check out the up-and-coming Mizzou blog: http://www.zoulogy.com
The details
Standard Pac-12 rule:
If you intend to transfer directly from one Pac-12 school to another and have previously attended or participated in practice there you may be subject to the Pac-12 Intra-Conference Transfer Rule. This rule’s penalty requires that you fulfill
one academic year of residence and lose one season of competition in all sports before being eligible to compete. You also may not receive athletically related financial aid during this period of ineligibility.
Only possible exception I see: if we did not recruit Osweiler and did not give him a dime of scholarship help, then the NCAA rule would apply.
Received athletics aid at first Pac-12 institution, transferred to second Pac-12 institution for graduate school; no athletics aid at second Pac-12 institution, not recruited by second Pac-12 institution while at first Pac-12 institution—Minimum penalty: Use NCAA rules.
Source: this pdf at pac-10.org…and it is up-to-date, as despite the URL the pdf has the Pac-12 logo on it.
Roses are red, violets are blue...f*** $C.
History Repeating - 2008 all over again
Remember the last time we hired a new coach? Do you remember Ryan Mallett?
http://blog.mlive.com/thediag/2008/01/toledo_blade_mallett_planning.html
I guess there was a chicken and egg difference
As I recall, to get Mallett we had to bring in Michigan’s OC too (whereas Mazzone is already here). Instead we went with Chow and the rest is bliss.
I am blanking out on the timeline
I think it was suppose to be a package deal with his QB coach – Scott Loughler or something. Can’t remember if Scott also ended up in Arkansas.
by Nestor on Jan 4, 2012 3:30 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
I love the comments in this link...
“If Mallette makes the move, he’ll have to compete in ‘09 against Chris Forcier, a 4-star rated prep QB (he redshirted in ’07), and this year’s incoming freshman Nick Crissman, among the top ten rated prep QB’s nationally. "
Fact: LOL
Howland is a poor judge of talent.
Shows in his recruiting, shows in his retention, shows in his game management. I guess he’s a good teacher of defense. But I really don’t know what else he’s good at.
Its time to stick a fork in Howland . . . he's done.
That ham is cooked, glazed and ready to be sliced.

Maybe its time for another run at Few?
The fail with Dinwiddie ...
… is but the latest example of how low CBH has brought our basketball program. Losing out to fricking Colorado on a much-needed guard? Words fail.
Osweiler would be nice.
He’ll make a good NFL QB too, per his size and arm strength and ability to move the pocket. Excellent teacher for Hundley too.
Cross those fingers everyone.
Osweiler would be nice.
His size, arm strength, and ability to move the pocket would help us greatly.
It’ll translate to the NFL too, for those same reasons.
Kyle has superior court vision.
And can dribble with both hands. Hopefully CBH will let him dribble with his left hand and cross-up opponents with both hands, because he didn’t let Drew Holiday do it.
And Drew was dangerous with his left handed dribble, he just never a got chance got to show us. Then left.
Why not! I would’ve too. Now he gets to do it on the next level. You listening CBH?
Jreu was able to do what he wanted...
at the time he wasn’t good enough… he would always try to drive in like in HS and always try to get a foul only to be caught in the air with no shot and to deep to pass out… Holiday didn’t live up to his HS hype… he got drafted on potential… he is a good NBA player and will keep doing so… but at the time he wasn’t ready or good enough!
Yes...
Wasn’t allowed to dribble with his left hand? Are you trolling?
Yes
Howland is old school in that he believes that dribbling with one’s left hand should be abolished. Left handed dribbling is a wholly self serving act performed by attention whores who simply want to gain that elusive air time on that night’s SportsCenter. In fact, in the 1960’s, worried that some players might gain some sort of unfair advantage by dribbling with their left hand, introduced the Lew Al – crap that was something else.
Left handed dribblers man…
Oh UCLA you sweet bitch, you've BRUINed me for anything else.
One Correction
Neu didn’t crater the program. Dan Guerrero did.
Neu is one in a line of bad coaching hire with zero support under Guerrero.
Neu was worse than Dorrell, who was worse than Toledo. The common denominator: Dan Guerrero.
I'm glad Kyle is a solid commit
Kyle will definitely help the Bruins. As for Osweiler, I think that we should recruit a prospect quarterback instead. Prince and Brehaut had their opportunities. Out with the old, in with the new.
by Trueblue'09 on Jan 4, 2012 5:16 PM PST via mobile reply actions
























