We have known for a while that E.J. Woods have been looking to transfer out of UCLA's football program. Apparently he has made it official:

UCLA announced today that safety E.J. Woods is no longer part of the team.

Woods, a 19-year-old from Encino Crespi High, said in a telephone interview today that he will transfer to Santa Monica College, enrolling this afternoon, with intentions to be there through December before attempting to enroll in another four-year university in the Pac-10 to play football next season.

Woods said he will not try to rejoin the UCLA football team.

"I wouldn’t come back [to UCLA]," Woods said. "I’m definitely going to try to come back to the Pac-10. I’m going to work extremely hard this year in junior college to get better physically, get better mentally and just to mature a little bit, and then go back to a four-year, finish my time there and then go to the NFL. That’s the plan."

And guess where he wants to go when he is ready to come back to a 4 year school:

When asked which Pac-10 schools he was considering, the only one he mentioned was USC. When asked why he was interested in the Trojans, he said their defensive style of play suited him better.

"I’m more in-the-box, coming off the edge, playing like … Troy Polamalu." Polamalu is a former Trojan and current Pittsburgh Steelers safety.

Uh huh. Sure E.J. Of course there is this part of the story:

Currently, Woods is facing six charges of battery and sexual battery stemming from three incidents at off-campus apartments between October and January, said a spokesman in the the Los Angeles city attorney’s office. Woods' pre-trial hearing will be held on July 31, the spokesman added.

Well now that E.J. has let the cat out of the bag and professed his desire to be a Trojie, it's just a matter of time those charges will get dismissed or "resolved." And when he is ready to come back he will be able to seamlessly fit in with the Pom Pom's band of merry (alleged) criminals from cross town.

It was pretty clear after the news broke of E.J. getting in trouble with the law he was not going to get any kind of special treatment from Neuheisel's program at UCLA. If he is looking for coddling of football players who gets in off-field trouble, he will fit in perfectly with Pom Pom's program in South Central.

I guess this works out well for everyone. We are getting rid of someone who never fit in with the culture of UCLA, while U$C* gets someone who will fit in perfectly with the reputation of the most scandalous athletic program in the recent history of college sports. Good luck E.J. but no one here will miss you.

GO BRUINS.

We have some football related news and notes to pass on before the start of the long 4th of July weekend.  I am sure many will be taking a long weekend in the coming days. I will be doing the same.  Although I will try to stop by every day,my blogging will be sporadic. Let's get to our roundup.

Looks like Neuheisel and his staff as reeled in another solid commitment on the football recruiting trail. This time the commit comes from out of state. Allen Trieu, Scout.com's Midwestern recruiting analyst reports (HT BruinFaithful)

The UCLA Bruins have been directing a great deal of recruiting attention toward the Midwest this recruiting season, and tonight those efforts paid off with a commitment. Rick Neuheisel corralled one of the top 20 players in the state of Michigan Wednesday in Orchard Lake (Mich) St. Mary’s safety Earnest Thomas.

Orchard Lake (Mich.) St. Mary’s safety Earnest Thomas had accumulated 16 offers and had been fielding strong interest from a number others programs, but decided Wednesday evening to cut his recruitment short by making a PAC 10 pledge.

"I committed to UCLA," Thomas said in a text to Scout.com moments ago.

Despite the distance from home, the 6’2" 190 lb. is extremely comfortable with southern California.  The three-star prospect sited his familiarity with area thanks to his father having coached there and the family members that still call it home.

Great news. Earnest has an impressive offer sheet which includes school such as Michigan, Missouri, Penn State and West Virginia. Here are the highlights via the Tube:

Earnest Thomas III Orchard Lake St. Mary's Football Highlights (via moneymanIII)

He looks fast. He also seems to have a bit of nasty streak. I like that a lot. Welcome to Westwood Earnest. With him UCLA now has 5 commits for the 2010 class.

Speaking football the single-game tickets are now on sale on the official site:

Single-game tickets for the 2009 football season go on sale Wednesday, July 1. Fans wishing to purchase tickets can call the UCLA Central Ticket Office at 310/UCLA-WIN or purchase them online at www.uclabruins.com and go to the Tickets page.

2009 opponents at the Rose Bowl include San Diego State on Sept. 5, Kansas State on Sept. 19, Oregon on Oct. 10, California on Oct. 17, Washington on Nov. 7 and Arizona State on Nov. 21.

September 5 can't get here first enough. Well right now we are in the baseball season. If you are in the San Diego area might want to consider dropping by at the Padres game for the opening pitch:

UCLA alumnus Troy Aikman will be throwing out the first pitch at this afternoon's Padres home game at PetCo Park in San Diego. Aikman is a part-owner of the team.

Aikman seems to be everywhere these days. Doesn't he?

GO BRUINS.

We will start our Spaulding roundup with a little trip over to Ted Miller's ESPN Pac-10 Blog. Ted has been publishing a series of posts starting with the title of "Don't be surprised ..." last few weeks in his attempt to offer up "unusual angles" to this upcoming Pac-10 season (gotta give him an "A" for effort given how difficult it is to come up with content during this nuclear winter of college football season). So Ted yesterday focused his efforts on UCLA observing that our offense could be "much better in 2009". Here are his reasons for offensive optimism:

No way a Norm Chow offense lays another egg like this one. In the quarter-century-plus he's been coaching offenses, he's never had one as bad as 2008.

The offense welcomes back nine starters, though redshirt freshman Kevin Prince has unseated Kevin Craft at quarterback.

Five players who would have started last year but were unavailable for various reasons -- injuries, suspension, transfer rules, etc. -- will be good to go in 2009: running back Christian Ramirez, tight end Logan Paulsen, center Kai Maiava, fullback Trevor Theriot and offensive tackle Sean Sheller.

That beleaguered offensive line not only welcomes back Sheller, it also gets six guys back who started at least five games last fall. What's more, incoming freshmen Stan Hasiak and Xavier Su'a-filo, as well as JC transfer Eddie Williams, represent one of the nation's best recruiting hauls of O-linemen.

Ted then went on to project a 6-6 regular season. That is pretty much on par with the discussions we have had on BN since the end of spring camp. I still think though we have to wait to see how the Fall camp shakes out and how kids like Stan Hasiak and Xavier Su'a-filo to the college game. We are not going to have a shot if our OL improves from last year's dire straits to an averaging perfoming unit this season, putting together a foundation for the upcoming ones.

As we have said before we have to treat this year like Howland's second year in Westwood. That  year it was all about getting into the NCAA tournament after Howland's (but not so surprising) first season. Of course barely getting into the NCAA tournament will never be up to UCLA standards. However, getting to that point in Howland's second season was a sure sign of tangible improvement that set him for future success. Getting into a bowl game this year for CRN's program will similarly set him for better seasons in the coming years in Westwood.

If Neueheisel and co. are able to pull off a bowl season this year expect that to boost their solid recruiting efforts even more. As the OC Register's Adam Maya notes in his June roundup, Bruins have momentum with 4 commitments and are zeroing on number of prospects from Southern California and across the nation:

In progress…

• Three-star receiver Anthony Jefferson of Cathedral High includes UCLA in his top five, along with USC, Cal, Oregon and Oklahoma.
• Three-star cornerback Cullen Christian ranks UCLA No. 3 among schools he’s considering.
• Servite High DT Kirifi Taula said UCLA is his favorite and he would likely commit once he receives an offer. The Bruins already offered Tesoro High OL Silvarius Ajawara, who has just recently gotten more attention but said he’s always loved UCLA.

And finally…

Several of the top recruits in the nation (Rivals.com’s top 100, Scout.com’s top 100) list UCLA as a possible destination, including: OT Seantrell Henderson (Scout and Rivals’ No. 1 overall player), DE Ronald Powell (No. 12, Rivals), RB Malcolm Jones (No. 15, Scout), WR Robert Woods (No. 17, Rivals), S Sean Parker (No. 19, Scout) and RB Anthony Barr (No. 20, Rivals).

Of course one of the guys who just committed to CRN is Bay Area's Brett Nottingham. He has been impressing scouts all over the Western region this summer. Greg Biggins from ESPN becomes the latest prominent Western recruiting guru to jump on the Nottingham bandwagon:

Brett Nottingham (Danville, Calif./Monte Vista) came in to Vegas with a lot of confidence after strong camp performances at Colorado, Stanford and UCLA. All three colleges offered scholarships and the signal caller fulfilled a lifelong dream committing to the Bruins, where both parents and two of his sisters attended.

Nottingham had a good workout and is one of those quarterbacks that just does everything well although he may not wow you in any one respect. His arm looked a bit tired after attending so many camps the previous weeks but arm strength will not be an issue at the next level.

Nottingham already has a college body at a solid 6-4, 210 pounds, takes great drops, throws well on the run as well as in the pocket and is a great leader with a magnetic personality.

Sounds perfect for UCLA.

GO BRUINS.

Let's start the Monday with some good news out of Vegas. The latest UCLA commit - QB Brett Nottingham - was the "top" performing QB at the Elite-11 QB camp at UNLV. From Craig Haubert of Scout Inc. from ESPN (HT PEDbruin):

Top performer: Brett Nottingham (Danville, Calif./Monte Vista)

Although a few quarterbacks performed well enough to claim this title, Nottingham had the best and most consistent day. The recent UCLA commit, who looked like a a polished pocket passer on tape, displayed that same skill in Saturday's workout. He looked very smooth and quick in his drops and showed strong ballhandling skills. He did not have the strongest arm in attendance but was very accurate and threw catchable balls. He really shined in short-to-intermediate passing work. He does not have striking physical measurables (6-foot-4, 208 pounds) but is a good-sized kid in person. The Bruins picked up a pretty good player who is fairly far along in his development and, based off his film and live workouts, should compete for playing time early in his career.

If Brett gets invited to the Elite-11 camp he will be the third fifth UCLA QB recruit to get invited to that camp in this decade (following the two Olsons: Drew and Ben  Drew Olson, Ben Olson, Nick Crissman and Richard Brehaut) [HT to BruinsRule].

One guy I am sure chomping for the opportunity to coach Brett is Norm Chow. In case you some of you missed it, ESPN's Ted Miller recently sat down with Chow for a great interview posted on WWL's Pac-10 blog. There were could of his comments I thought were worth highlighting on the home page. I thought Chow's responses re. Kevin Prince's performance this spring was somewhat comforting:

This spring you guys tapped redshirt freshman Kevin Price the starting quarterback fairly quickly: What about him impressed you?

NC: He's bright. He's strong. He's got a nice arm. He understands the game. He hasn't played for two years. He was hurt [his senior year of high school] and was already committed to the University of Washington when we got here, but we talked him into staying down here. He lives 10 minutes from UCLA and always wanted to go there, but I guess the previous staff didn't really recruit him or whatever. So he's a guy who wants to be there. He wants to be a good player. If we made a mistake, we probably should have played him a little bit last year, but the way the season was going and mid-way through the season when we'd have to make that decision about a redshirt and so forth we decided as a staff it would be best to hold him out. So the negative is he hasn't played for two years. The positive is that he understands the offense after being a part of it for a year and he's ready to explode, I hope.

Prince didn't play well in the scrimmages: Why do you think that was and does that concern you?

NC: No, not at all. Scrimmages are scrimmages -- we don't game plan; we just call plays. The defensive guys are trying to get their work done and you're trying to get your work done, so oftentimes it doesn't match, if you will. But I thought he performed well. He managed the offense. Maybe the numbers weren't like they were supposed to be but I thought he did well in the spring.

Chow then went on to emphasize how the OL will "always be the key." The most interesting part of his interview was this response wrt to his relationship with CRN:

Obviously Rick Neuheisel, a former UCLA quarterback, is an offensive guy. And he's a hands-on head coach. Did you guys ever butt heads during the season?

NC: Not at all. We have respect for each other. We're both trying to get the same things done. We have very similar ideas about offense. No, it was a joy. This past year, of all the years I've ever coached, was the first time I worked with an offensive coach, an offensive-minded head coach. I've always worked with defensive-minded head coaches, both in college and the NFL. They kind of have a tendency to leave you alone. But Rick was very good about suggestions and thoughts. All you're trying to do is get better. We got along very well. In fact, it was fun. He was a joy to work with. He's a nice guy. He's a fun guy. He's an intense guy. He's perfect for the head coaching position at UCLA.

Not sure if I have ever heard Chow speak of the former head coaches he worked under in such glowing terms. Something must be working right in Westwood and this is right in line with the feedback we have read over the years from other coaches who have worked under Neuheisel.

Lastly, we will end the roundup with couple of stories on alums doing really well in their careers following UCLA football. Dave Ball who terrorized QBs in a Bruin uniform is doing well with Chow's former employer Tennesse Titans. There was a nice write up on him last week in Nashville's City Paper.

Then there is Chad Sauter. Remember Chad? He was one of the anchors of the offensive line that protected number 18 and opened up holes for Skip Hicks and Deshaun Foster during UCLA's 20 game winning streak back in late 90s. Chad is now an L.A. County Sherrif's deputy. He is also coaching up kids as a volunteer assistant at Lynwood and Compton Centennial High Schools as a volunter assistant. Chad is doing his own version of shock-and-awe campaign while coaching up kids in those two schools:

Though he is responsible for the linemen, Sauter, 33, works with quarterbacks on understanding defensive formations, and he shows linebackers how to read linemen's stances to determine whether the offense is going to run or pass.

Sauter says the teens he works with are good kids. And he plans to keep it that way through his own shock-and-awe campaign.

He awes players by showing off his Cotton Bowl and Rose Bowl rings as incentive to go to college. He shocks them with stories of teenage lives gone awry.

"He's seen kids go in and out of jail, get killed and all that," said DeShawn Foxx, a running back and linebacker for Lynwood. "That helped some of the players on the team open their eyes and realize that life's not a joke."

Even players who were initially hesitant about having a deputy in their midst have come to appreciate Sauter's easygoing manner and sense of humor.

"He does a good job with the at-risk kids," Lynwood Coach Mark Williams said. "I might tell him, 'This cat might have a little problem there. See what kind of rapport you can build with him.' After a while, you'll see him talking to them for hours."

Good to hear there is at least one police not owned by the Trojans in LA.

GO BRUINS.

While we were wrapped up with draft related news stories, some notes have been trickling in over at the football fronts. It looks like UCLA might be looking at considering two possible transfer options this summer. Colorado WR Josh Smith is considering a transfer to UCLA. From the Daily Camera (Boulder newspaper):

CU compliance director Julie Manning confirmed Friday that the former Buffs wide receiver also has been given a release to UCLA.

CU athletic director Mike Bohn and coach Dan Hawkins had originally limited Smith's release to Southern Cal. He informed them last month that he intended to transfer closer to home near Los Angeles to a school where he could pursue a specific music degree not offered at CU.

When CU limited his transfer option to just USC, he appealed the decision to a committee made up of three professors. They ruled on the side of Bohn and Hawkins, but Manning said a deal was worked out between Smith and Hawkins allowing the release and possible transfer to UCLA.

If Smith eventually ends up with the Bruins, he will be the second Buff in the past two offseasons to leave Boulder for Westwood, Calif. Former offensive lineman Kai Maiava left CU after the 2007 season for UCLA, where he is expected to be a heavy contributor this season for former CU coach Rick Neuheisel.

Per Dohn our coaches are "very interested" and if a scholarship becomes "available" there is a "very good chance" of this transfer "happening" in Westwood. Wanting to transfer to UCLA to pursue a degree in music (and a perhaps a career in that area after football) makes a lot of sense. Again if you need a reminder why it makes sense just check out the latest commencement speech at UCLA.

I mentioned there are two transfer possibilities this season. Besides Josh, UCLA also might be looking into Notre Dame sophomore tight end Joseph Fauria. Fauria apparently looked pretty impressive during spring practice and is still has some nice words for the ND program. From the South Bend Tribune:

"Coach Weis did so much for me. He'll always feel like a part of my family. I'm going to follow ND this fall. They're going to be very good."

Fauria was one of the biggest pleasant surprises of spring practice, jumping to No. 2 on the tight end depth chart behind incumbent starter Kyle Rudolph.

He played in three games in 2008, logging roughly 21 minutes of playing time with one special teams appearance. He caught two passes for 17 yards in the April Blue-Gold Game.

However, the cirumstances around why he is leaving the program stemming from a suspension by the university's Office of Residence Life for "undisclosed disciplinary reasons" seems rather odd. From Jay at the excellent ND blog Blue Gray Sky:

Fauria also claims he was forbidden to appeal the decision. Unlike the rest of you diligent and pious alums, I cannot quote chapter and verse from DuLac, so I paged through it this morning looking for the "appeals" guidelines. I was surprised to find that ND's disciplinary process only allows for "case reviews", not appeals, and even then only in situations where procedural defect is alleged or new information has come to light. Appealing simply on the grounds of "severity of punishment" is never considered. While this may be a crummy policy, what this tells us is that Fauria's lack of access to appeal probably wasn't out of the ordinary in the draconian world of ResLife.

I have no idea what Fauria did, and you probably don't, either. Fauria claims it was something minor (you'd laugh if you knew, he said in another interview). I will say that there seems to be a lot of rumors flying around, ranging from the merely prankish to more serious allegations. Unless Fauria himself divulges the details -- the school certainly won't -- we'll likely never know the facts in the case. Given that we don't know the details, and given the fact that ResLife has no reservoir of credibility to draw from, it's hard to know if justice was served in Fauria's suspension. (The decision to permanently transfer, of course, remains his.)

Per Dohn UCLA will "look at him." I sure hope the coaches and the UCLA's administrators do their due diligence and perform all the background check (including getting all the information from Notre Dame's "ResLife") before making their decision. It's not like we are hurting for depth at TEs.

Lastly, looking way ahead in recruiting UCLA just might have the early lead on a young QB from Los Angeles:

With thick blond hair and an instinct to lead, junior quarterback Jerry Neuheisel might provide some balance to blue-chip running back Anthony Barr in Los Angeles Loyola's offense this fall.

Neuheisel arrived from Baltimore last year after his father, Rick, was hired as UCLA's football coach. He helped the Cubs' sophomore team win a Serra League championship, and appears ready to make an impact at the varsity level.

He's 6 feet 1 and has some of the same qualities his father exhibited during his years as a quarterback at UCLA.

"He's got a little bit of the gunslinger attitude that his dad had," Coach Jeff Kearin said.

It hasn't hurt that Neuheisel has grown up with a football always nearby. He travels to UCLA and receives lessons from his father. And he has been looking forward to becoming a varsity quarterback for a long time.

"I'm ready," he said. "I've got to get used to the speed, and you have to get used to scenarios. You have to officially step up your game."

Kearin won a Southern Section title in his rookie season at Loyola in 2005 but since then has been unable to develop consistency at quarterback. Neuheisel can help change that. He had to beat out another junior, Brett Nelson, during spring practice, and he has to perform this summer to keep his job.

But that's Neuheisel's strength -- embracing pressure and expectations. He has a quick release and makes good decisions. His father has told him: "Just be ready and accept the challenge."

Sounds just like his Dad. Besides Jerry, Jack Neuheisel is also going to be enrolling at Loyola this Fall. He plays linebacker. Read rest of Eric Sondheimer's story here.

I am sure we are going to hear a lot about how the season unfolds for both of them this coming year. Also, I am sure they are going to do everything they can to talk up UCLA to their fellow classmates including Anthony Barr who is UCLA recruiting heavily for next season.

GO BRUINS.

Photo Credit: dabruins07's photostream (flickr)

View full size photo uploaded June 25, 2009

Let's take a little detour from celebrating the big night of Bruin senior to share some news on another great Bruin who is going to be a senior next season. We are talking a little football here. ATV is blogging.

Yes, really. The Bruin senior pre-season All American is "blogging" at least in spirit on the official site where he is sharing stories from his last summer as UCLA student on a "periodic" basis. It is basically reads like a journal (guess that makes it a blog) however without the usual bells and whistles that accompany a conventional blogging platform (hey maybe the athletic department will get there by 2012?). Anyway, all jokes aside ATV's update is a pretty fun read. The kid is taking (and apparently acing) his classes on Romanian:

This week was the first week of summer school at UCLA. I am currently taking Romanian 103, which is an intensive introduction to the Romanian language. It is a six-week session that lasts from 9:00 am-1:40 pm every single day of the six weeks. This is excluding weekends, of course. So, the first few days of class been very interesting, with the language very similar to Spanish. We have learned how to greet people, ask how old they are, who they are, what they are, what day it is, what's their birthdays, where they are from, location directions of places, and how to say goodbye.

So we have completed four days, and we had our first quiz on Wednesday. It was what we learned from Monday to Wednesday of this week. The quiz consisted of us translating the English dialogue into Romanian dialogue. It was scored on a scale of one to 10, and I was fortunate to receive a 10 on the first assignment. What a way to start the class off.

Sounds a little different than the Senora Ross's summer "class" from the other side of the town. ATV is aslo working out with his team-mates during the off season:

In other events this week, we have started voluntary football workouts. Most of the team stayed around this summer to participate so we can be ready for the season. I am lifting and running early in the morning at 6 am, but other times are 8:30 am and 3:30 pm. We have been hitting it hard and pushing each other to new PRs and plateaus. Then we get together for some team activities at night to work on team chemistry, like receivers running routes and DBs working on technical things to enhance our games. This week, I was able to see the incoming recruiting class. They bring a lot of talent to our team. It's a young group that needs to learn, but the players have the physical and mental capacity to be successful. They have a nice swagger to them and are very gifted. I have been impressed! But I am mainly waiting to see what they do in camp.

Read rest of the update here which also includes his notes from shooting a commercial promoting the student experience as one of the leading student-athletes at UCLA. Not a bad effort by ATV. I'd say his debut in the blogosphere (we are giving benefit of the doubt here) was just as strong as his first game at UCLA (See what he did to Utah at the Rose Bowl in his first game as Bruin). Looking forward to reading more updates from pre-season All American.

GO BRUINS.

We don't really need to get into detail about why we think Tom Hansen is probably the worst commissioner leading a BCS conference. We have had numerous discussions on his incompetent leadership over the years here on BN. In short we have gotten accustomed to culture of mediocrity under him as we have seen the conference flail around the same way we saw our football and basketball programs were turning into national laughing stocks under Dorrell and Lavin.

Well Tom is retiring soon and he is going out in style looking clueless and completely tonedeaf. Check out how he responded to a question about lack of progress in Pac-10's investigation of U$C*'s athletic program in a recent Q&A he did with the LA Times:

Question: Does it bother you to leave with theUSC investigation still unresolved?

Answer: It doesn't bother me, because it's a rare time where you don't have some investigation going on. I realize the Reggie Bush part of this has gone on, I think it's safe to say, longer than any case that's happened during my tenure. . . .

The frustrating thing is that it's been so extremely difficult to gather information even when people are running around leaking information that they allege to be true. I notice that most of the time when people are talking in these cases there's a book about to come out, but I'm sure that's just happenstance.

Get that. Mr. Hansen is not bothered at all by the lack of progress in the U$C* investigation. Never mind the entire country now thinks the whole U$C* program is a big joke. Never mind the fact that a major sports coach from that tainted program has already had to leave under a pile of allegations and shady circumstances. Tommy cannot be bothered. He is just frustrated about the fact that apparently leading a conference and doing actual investigation is hard work! He just wants to get paid for sitting on his rear end and collect a pay check for coming up with the worst bowl arrangements and TV Ks in college football and basketball.

Oh Tom doesn't end there. He also trots out the company line for U$C* saying how hard it is for them to get to the bottom of pesky facts:

Q: Are you comfortable the USC case will come to a just conclusion?

A: Yes, I think the history of the NCAA and the conference enforcement programs is that things are done fairly, so I'm confident they will be in this case. I just hope, like everybody else, and I'm sure USC is No. 1 on this, that it all could be concluded. But I think you have to step back and see that USC can't bring this to a conclusion, because almost all of the parties involved lie outside the university and outside the control of the university.

Once those student athletes leave, and there's no eligibility at risk, you lose leverage completely over them. If Reggie Bush or O.J. Mayo were trying to retain their eligibility, then you'd have some leverage. But that's not the case.

I am sure Tom is also comfortable with OJ looking for the real killer.

It gets better. Tom bristled at all those who are wondering what has taken so long with pathetic condescension :

Q. Why has it taken so long?

A: The single factor that people probably don't understand, because they watch TV and they watch these prosecutors and police nail people . . . and they all do it in 19 minutes or whatever you have in a half-hour show . . . you have an excruciating process because we do not have subpoena power. . . . We cannot subpoena anyone or force them to testify, so they don't.

So get that. No one else except Tom and the bureaucrats in the Pac-10 office has no clue about how to navigate around the administrative procedures devised under current NCAA and Pac-10 provisions. Going back to his previous post apparently all this is "extremely difficult" for poor Tom (but it's not very difficult for Tom to take bold and decision action against a school UCLA for petty & innocent self-reported rule violations in tennis program).

I guess Tom thinks when he is communicating to college athletics fans today via a publication such as the LA Times, he is talking to bunch of little babies who are just cool with getting spoon fed by shallow talking points not based on kind of reality.

And people wonder why we (and probably rest of the Pac-10 fans except for Trojan honks these days) think this guy has been nothing short of a miserable failure. We have thrown around the temr "lack of institutional control" when talking about the renegade program across town. Reading this "commissioner's" pathetic comments above one has to wonder if that problem persists in the entire Pac-10 organization that has been devoid of any kind of credible leadership during the impotent reign of Tom Hansen.

GO BRUINS.

We have some football related news and notes that have piled up from last few days. So let's get right to them. Looks like there is now a major obstacle to Brandon Warner to UCLA scenario. From Brian Dohn:

Warner said he spoke at length with members of the coaching staff Sunday, but he no longer feels comfortable with the program. He said the lengthy conversations with UCLA were because the staff "is still trying to get me to go there.''
Asked what the problem was with UCLA, Warner said "a whole bunch of stuff'." He added UCLA did not remain in close contact with him during a trying time this spring in which he was finishing classes and trying to resolve an outstanding tuition bill. He said his transcripts were released to schools today.
Does it look like UCLA is out of the picture?
"Probably, but I can't say definite,'' he said.
Warner said he is now looking at New Mexico State, SMU and Ohio University.
"They are all about even right now,'' Warner said.

The story sounds really odd. For some reason Warner has been working to get this transcript straightened out since March. He told Dohn back in April that he was supposed to get some kind of "loan check" that would enable him to play "bill" (presumably related to transcript) and get the administrative issue all straightened out. However, one has to wonder exactly how difficult it is to clear up an administrative hold on Warner's transcript if it was related to financial issues. Was there any othe issues involved? Just asking. Because the options he has besides UCLA - NMSU, SMU or Ohio University - don't scream of major D 1 programs. I would think given his availibility other major programs in the Pac-10 would be all over him. So something doesn't seem quiet right with this story. Wish there was more information since he seems to be leaving with a parting shot against UCLA coaches (who left a spot open for him for months) that seems unfair and out of left field.

Let's go from one strange situation to another apparently Chris Forcier was on a big media tour after his odd press release in which he annouced his decision to transfer to Furman University. He appeared on Dan Patrick's show late last week. There was nothing dramatic in that appearance and he didn't any new "facts." Again, hopefully he finds himself at home and succeeds at Furman. FWIW I do like the fact that he left saying very classy things about UCLA (even though the media tour seemed a little odd).

Moving on from transfers let's talk about some alums from the program. Justin Hickman is working to develop his professional career in Canadian football league:

Defensive end Justin Hickman, who earned first-team All-America honors in 2006 while making 12.5 sacks, is expected to play for the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the Canadian Football League. Hickman left for Canada earlier this week for pre-season camp.

Good luck to Justin. Hopefully he will eventually work his way into the NFL.

Speaking of the NFL there is a wonderful story on TBO.com (Tampa Bay Online) about former Bruin safety and Bucs linebacker getting involved with charity in Tampa Bay:

There were about 60 Tampa Bay area business and community leaders invited Tuesday night to a Ryan Nece Foundation function at Mise En Place, a Tampa restaurant. It seemed like routine stuff - cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, networking, Nece saying thanks for the support, the requisite contributions to the foundation and everyone speeding back to their normal lives.

Then Nece called for everyone's attention.

"Tonight, I want to do something a little different," said Nece, the former Bucs linebacker who played last season with the Detroit Lions.

Slowly, everyone forgot about their normal lives. Suddenly, they imagined some possibilities.

Each person was handed an envelope - with a "Power of Giving" logo.

Inside was $55.

Nece, who wore No. 55 last season with the Lions, had instructions. Use the money for someone who needs help, he said. Try to make the cash multiply. Be creative. Get others involved.

Ryan got his inspiration from a sermon in church and Kevin Spacy and Haley Joel Osmont's "Pay It Forward" (the movie):

"It's such a simple concept," Nece said. "Yet, how often do we do something like that?

"We're all so caught up in our lives. And these days, with the economy, we're all bombarded by such negativity. We're all in tough times.

"The idea is to step away from your own life, do something for others and watch it grow. Imagine how you can help someone else. I was a little nervous about it because all of these people have supported the foundation, but nobody really knew why they were invited to this. Truthfully, I can't believe the response. The juices were really flowing. People were thinking. They were lingering, not wanting to leave. It's exciting."

Nece wants everyone, once they have an idea about how to use the $55, to write a blog on his Web site (www.ryannece.com).

Before leaving Tuesday night, one man said he was going to spend his $55 on postage stamps. He would then write friends and acquaintances, imploring them to help others with a financial donation.

Ryan donated $4,000 of his own money into the project.

Yet another Bruin who has made his mark both on and off the field.

GO BRUINS.