ucla beat drexel. I know that. doesn't change anything else.

I agree with blackjack. I think we got to enthusiastic with our win over Utah and I think we are beating ourselves up too much over Rice. It's a long season. Let us all remain calm and collective. It's not like UC Davis or Montana St. came in and beat us. Ben was off his game and it showed. Special teams should do nothing but try to block punts and return kicoffs. Catching the ball is obviously too much to ask right now.  The offense was horrible through the air because thats what Rice was defending. If we ran the ball the entire game then everyone would be bitching that we're not using Olson enough. Let us remember it was only his second game. He was pulling back from center early and he had happy feet in the pocket. I do give props to our "D." Their intensity level was better then the offense. We did stop Rice from the 2. That was awesome. Some kinks got exposed and now we have two weeks to straighten them out. Lets all stay calm. GO BRUINS!!!!

It seems to me that Nestor and BN just aim to hold Dorrell accountable for what happens on the field and there is nothing wrong with that.  We can't help but get nervous and tense when we see our team struggling with Rice, who is a team that should be no match for us.  I dont see it so much as anti-Dorrell as much as it's pro-UCLA football.  The reason I like this site is because it doesn't sugarcoat things and it's not unabashed homerism.

I will say this about last nights game, the things that made the game close were not coaching errors.  Indirectly you could blame the coaching staff for not having the players fired up and ready to go.  But muffing punts, getting holding penalties, fumbling, throwing interceptions and generally not executing are should fall on the players first.

I think the silver lining in this is the coaches will be pissed and step the intensity of practice up to make sure we come out firing against Washington in a few weeks and lets hope that's exactly what happens.

On boards like this nothing is ever enough.  I assure you that even before the last Rose Bowl there were Trojan boards out there calling for Carrol's ass.  34 wins and 1.5 national championships weren't enough.  If there were message boards back in the 60's and 70's I bet there would have been at least 5 variations of firewooden.com.  I can imagine some of the posts now "88 strait, why couldn't he have won 100"  and "That Walton has long, dirty hair.  Sure he went 21 for 22 in the finals and we won, but still, what about the lack of discipline".  Just ignore/deal with the Dorrell bashing.  I was skeptical in the beginning, but the guy has helped to get respect for the program.  Sure he has to take us back to a Rose Bowl and Beat SC.  Those things will happen, but in the meantime lets take a 10 win season and a 2-0 record and enjoy it.  I'll be there again on the 30th to BRING DOWN THE WHAMMY!!!!!!!!!!

in comparison to bball...u can lose in bball and still make the tourney! football is completely different. the whole football season is basically a tourney so u cant fuck up any games..period. u must beat who ur spose ta.. but i guess we did so lets just wait a few more weeks..ie. if we dont start 5-0 im gonna punch dorell in the face haha

Your overreaction to our overreaction.

Beat that!

It isn't hatred and bile.  It was a horribly coached and played game.  We don't hate Karl, we don't want him fired, and we don't want to punch him in the face.  We want this program to finally reach it's potential.

We were singing the praises during the impressive victory over Utah, and were venting our anger over the poorly executed game.  That's it.  One game.  Big drop in performance, big increase in criticism.

Hugs for everyone!

Tomorrow morning, when Nestor wakes up on the East Coast and finds this post while we're still asleep, I'm sure he's going to go online and echo what ucla21 says here.  And if you actually continue to argue your point, he'll start comparing you to whatever neocon he's decided he hates today.  (I was compared to Ann Coulter the day I tried to have this same discussion.)

The thing is, if you're right, and this is going to prove to be a good season, it will be clearer and clearer as the season goes on.

Let them hang themselves now and keep saying that this is going to be a sub-.500 season.  Then, when the season is over and we've beaten all the dire predictions, bring these posts back to haunt them at the beginning of the 2007 season when they're still saying Dorrell should be fired because we haven't won a national championship.

You're right, blackjack, this website is unfairly anti-Dorrell, and they're blaming him for some things that aren't his fault here.  But this diary post isn't going to stop them, simply because nothing (including a 9-3 season and beating 'SC, I'm willing to bet) will.

Like you, I'm sure, when this is the first or second website I read tomorrow morning, I'll come and read whatever comments are written in response to what you wrote here and just wish the moderators of this site could let go of their overriding obsession with getting rid of Dorrell.  The longer they have to defend themselves against diary entries like yours, the more likely that is to happen, so thanks for voicing your opinion.

I had a huge thing typed up, but I deleted it because it would have most certainly started a flame war.  I'll summarize it briefly:  Explain to me how holding KD to his own standard of "competing for conference titles" annually is being "anti-dorrell".  If all your finger pointing is for is to lower expectations by distracting people from on the field results by putting people on the defensive, then take that bullshit elsewhere.  9 wins.  Beat SUC. THIS season.  That's my expectation.

As for comparing your crap to Howland, you couldn't possibly be more misguided.  If you think I was going to be unhappy with a man that kept winning during, before, and after that horrific streak of injuries that befell the team, you're out of your frickin mind.  Call me next time KD is down to 25 healthy scholarship players, then we can have a fair comparison.

It's great to be a great guy, well respected and whatnot, but the bottom line is he's here to coach (and win) for the UCLA Bruins - a division 1 program.

I believe in supporting Coach D, but his flaws seep out so easily every year.  Flaws that become obvious even to the most beligerent UCLA fan at the rose bowl.

He's our coach this season, and there's no changing it so I will support him and not trash him all day long.  But the bottom line is we must improve as the season moves on, or well, let's just be positive.