Football
WWL's Spotlight: Impressions From The Rose Bowl
by Nestor
on May 6, 2008 6:33 PM PDT
in Football
WWL's Ivan Maisel was at the Rose Bowl last weekend checking out the first spring scrimmage under CRN at UCLA. Maisel specifically spent a lot of time with Norm Chow during the scrimmage. Chow was of course working without his top 2 QBs who went down less than 48 hours before the final scrimmage. Maisel's article on spotlighting UCLA's spring scrimmage is now up which includes his following impressions after hanging around the coach's booth with Chow both at the Rose Bowl:
The logistics of a new staff working in a new press box illustrate all the moving parts in a football team's engine. Coaches take for granted that the communication will go smoothly from press box to sideline. It's spring practice for the headsets, too. UCLA has new audio equipment. Chow couldn't hear the sideline. Then Girardi informed Chow that he and offensive line coach Bob Palcic were on different channels. Chow didn't take it well.
After the first series, Chow said, "Get me Bob."
"You have to switch," Girardi said.
"I have to switch? Oh, we are screwed up here," Chow said. "I don't like this at all. I thought I could talk to Bob when I wanted to talk to him."
Chow, 62, is of a generation that flinches at the technological. He was mystified not so much that he must punch in a key code to gain entry to the coaches' locker room on campus, but that when he asked for the code, he was told he would receive it in an e-mail.
"Why can't you just tell it to me?" Chow asked.
His bafflement is not a question of intelligence. The number of offensive coordinators who have a doctorate in education might fit in a phone booth, if phone booths were as prevalent as they used to be. For all of his supposed genius with a play script in hand, the doctorate reveals another key to his success.
"You see Norm Chow and you get starstruck by him," Peetz said, "It's hard to learn from a guy that you feel is that far above you. The first thing he does is he cuts himself all the way down to your level. I remember one of the first things he said was, 'Look, guys, I'm not that smart. We're going to make this simple, because I can't do all that West Coast stuff. I'm not smart enough.' He's very humble."
"He came around at the end and made some nice decisions," Chow said. "... he needs to spend his time in the film room, he needs to get used to the rhythm of the game. The key for him is to get in the film room."
NCAA rules prevent coaches from working with players until practice resumes in August. When the Bruins reconvene, Olson should be healthy and Craft should be competing to be his backup. When Chow tells Craft he's "one play away," he'll know exactly what his coach means.
GO BRUINS.
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Savage Truth
by Achilles
on May 1, 2008 1:34 PM PDT
in Football
Yes, the title is a blatant rip-off of Dan Savage, but I consider it a tribute.
Thursday's Daily Bruin has a nice feature on two-sport athlete Darius Savage.
Here is an excerpt:
For Darius Savage, multiply that strenuous schedule by two and you would have a better idea what he has been through during his career so far at UCLA.
The sophomore from San Diego has spent his first two years as a Bruin shuffling his focus from the Rose Bowl to Drake Stadium, balancing his life between football and track and field.
This spring quarter, everything has been crammed into one. With the track season in full swing and the start of spring practice, this is the first time Savage has had to deal with both sports at the same time.
"It's pretty busy," Savage said. "It's probably been the hardest few weeks for me athletically."
It is not an easy schedule. Football workouts in the mornings. Class during the day. Track practice Mondays and Wednesdays. Football practice three times a week. Lifting and conditioning. Tutoring and meetings. After some reading and a little time to relax, it's finally time for bed.
Although it seems like a lot, Savage seems to have handled everything well, and he is excelling on the football field and in the throwing circle.
UCLA has had it's share of two-sport stars: Freddie Mitchell (football and baseball), Danny Farmer (football and volleyball), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (basketball and track and field), Ryan Hollins (basketball and track) ... just to name a few.
Personally, I'm glad to see Darius doing well in both sports. He's projected to start on the offensive line in football and he's an All-American in shot put. More than that, I'm glad the coaches are open to players participating in two sports. I feel that attitude benefits recruiting (and thus the team) and also benefits the student athletes.
Here is a picture from the Daily Bruin web site:
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Aikman Inducted to CFB Hall of Fame
by Tydides
on May 1, 2008 12:44 PM PDT
in Football
In a move sure to please the Bruin faithful, Troy Aikman, Super Bowl Champion, is a CFB HoF Inductee.
From the WWL:
Aikman started his college career at Oklahoma, then transferred to UCLA. After two stellar seasons (1987-88) with the Bruins, he was drafted first overall by the Dallas Cowboys.
Congrats to Troy from Bruin Nation (and from CRN, apparently).
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A Beautiful Night At The Rose Bowl
by Nestor
on Apr 28, 2008 4:06 AM PDT
in Football
For those of us who missed a beautiful night at the Rose Bowl: Jack Rosenfeld sent some wonderful pictures to share with the Bruin Nation.
Rick Neuheisel officially made his debut as the head coach of UCLA football program at the venue he immortalized himself in Bruin lore as the MVP of 1984 Rose Bowl game.
For more pictures from Saturday night please join us after the flip ...
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Football News & Notes
by Nestor
on Apr 28, 2008 4:05 AM PDT
in Football
We have a lot of football related notes to wrap up from this weekend's scrimmage and the NFL draft. Let's start with the scrimmage. We heard all about BO and PC last few days. Let's hear from the QBs who took most of the snaps at the Rose Bowl on Sat night. According Kevin Pearson from the Press Enterrpise, Craft was indifferent wrt his performance:
"It takes time to adjust to an offense. We have a lot of time from now to our first game. I'm more excited that I have all that time to work."
Craft is also adjusting to playing under center. He worked mainly out of the shotgun at San Diego State and Mount San Antonio College and said its an adjustment that takes some time getting used to.
"I haven't done any drop back stuff since high school," Craft said. "It is an adjustment, but I have from now until our first game. It is an adjustment and I am getting used to it. Seeing the field is different."
Forcier led a stretch where the UCLA offense gained three first-downs in a four-play stretch and had completions of 18 and 19 yards on the drive.
"I had a couple of good series in there and the one series we drove down the field I had a couple good passes and it boosted my confidence," Forcier said. "That's the biggest thing for me is staying confident."
As for CRN he is feeling good about the spring camp as he thinks it will get his players in the right mindset this off season, getting them ready for this fall:
As UCLA was getting commitment from future Bruins, few current ones were getting their tickets punched for the NFL. Davis is going to be a Steeler, Slater a Patriot, and Horton a Redskin. As usual the most interesting comment came from Bruce Davis, who had some choice words re. his former coaches at UCLA:
As for former Bruins coach Karl Dorrell, Davis also had an opinion.
"Karl Dorrell one day will be a great NFL offensive coordinator. The way he sees the game and the way he understands things on the field ..."
Anyway, I wish Davis luck. But in some ways I will always think of Davis as the Earl Watson of Bruin football. Earl in his days was the biggest defender of Steve Lavin. Both great athlete who had some great moments during their careers as UCLA players, but never reached the status of Bruin legends. In my book to achieve the status of Bruin legend for a football player, it involves beating Southern Cal and at least getting to the Rose Bowl, and for a hoops player it involves at least winning the Pac-10 conference and getting to the Final-4. Unfortunately for Davis just like Watson he was shortchanged because of an incompetent coaching staff (by his own admission). Let's hope he (and other Bruins such as Slater and Horton) taste that ultimate team success at the next level.
GO BRUINS.
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Passion Bucket Filling Up The Rose Bowl
by Nestor
on Apr 27, 2008 11:32 AM PDT
in Football
Many thanks to uclafan11 who recorded this at the Rose Bowl. More than 15,000 die hard Bruins showed up and CRN fired them up and filled the place up with the passion bucket:
Thanks again to uclafan11 for letting us drink out of that passion bucket!
Much appreciated on behalf of thousands of Bruins living in exile. It fired all of us up.
GO BRUINS.
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Spring Scrimmage Roundup & Notes
by Nestor
on Apr 27, 2008 9:55 AM PDT
in Football
Several of you have posted the news in the comment threads already. But let's get it up right up front for everyone else. The big story from Saturday night is the status of Patrick Cowan. The kid is going to be out for the entire 2008 season. From the LA Times:
Cowan, who has already used a redshirt season, was unsure whether he would petition for a sixth year of eligibility, saying, "I don't know. I wasn't expecting this. There are a lot of things that can happen at this point. I need some time to think about what's going to happen."
However, before he gets on the field, the broken bone in his right foot must heal. He will meet with doctors Monday to decide whether or not to have surgery to implant a screw to aid in the healing.
"Everybody I talked to with this type of fracture said the screw is probably the way to go, but I haven't made any decisions yet," Olson said. "I want to do the thing that is best for my body and get back as fast as I can. The screw sounds like the way to go."
Olson should be back in June, which gives him plenty of time to get ready for August training camp and the Sept. 1 opener against Tennessee.
But after being relegated to second-string just a third of the way through spring practice, he wasn't taking for the starting position for granted.
"It's not my call," Olson said. "It never has been, and never will be. All I can do is just try to keep a positive attitude and just keep working. It's not a good thing to be out six to eight weeks, but luckily it's toward the end of spring ball and I'll be back for fall camp, but it's tough because you're missing time you can be (practicing) what we learned (in spring ball)."
"They won't be throwing the ball around much before that," Chow said.
What Olson (and Cowan) has going for them is they will have a supportive head coach, who will also make the right moves in terms of giving them as much psychological boost as possible. [See matsumoto720's spring scrimmage report]
CRN was his part is showing no sign of concern (from the DN report linked above):
None of the three were particularly sharp in the spring game. Craft completed 11 of 24 passes for 95 yards with one interception and one touchdown, Forcier was 4 of 6 for 52 yards with one interception and Rasshan was 4 of 7 for 60 yards and one touchdown.
Offensive coordinator Norm Chow said Olson and Craft likely would go into the fall competing for the starting spot, and considering none of the three quarterbacks that played got many reps during the spring he said the results were not too bad.
"There was real nervousness at the start," Chow said of Craft. "That's why we started to run the ball early, to calm him down a little bit. But he came around at the end and made some nice decisions. He still needs to get in a rhythm. He's not used to being under center. We all understand that. But that's what he's going to have to do."
Rashaan struggled the most of the three. He had some problems with the snaps, as you might expect from someone who really hasn't played much at the position this spring. But he did have two "wow" passes. One went to Taylor Embree on a long pass to the far side. That kid made a great catch and I see why people talk about him. The other was a scrimmage ending toss to a walk-on (Pearlman, or something, I forget) that was a perfectly placed ball right over the middle for six. The rest of the time he had "happy feet" and he would take off running before he really needed to.
Despite the injury notes on Cowan/Olson and others, I am fired about next year. And my optimism has nothing to do with expected win totals for next seasons. Beware of concern trolls who will come on here and try to set their standards for what to expect from next year's team in terms of win-loss record. As we haves aid before, changing the direction of the listless and lifeless program Dorrell left us with in Westwood, entails lot more than increasing win totals. Howland in his first two years record wise didn't accomplish more than what Lavin did in his last two years at UCLA. Yet what Howland did was the changing the culture of UCLA hoops.
The change we are looking from CRN in his first 2 years is not necessarily increasing win totals, but changing how our team approaches the game. Among the things we are looking for is to see whether or not our team comes out with an aggressive, no fear mentality on both sides of the ball. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what kind of talent CRN inherited in this program. Just look at the NFL draft from yesterday: Southern Cal 7 - UCLA 0. That pretty much gives us the whole story.
CRN has a long way to go. But already we can sense certain changes around the psychology of our program. All we ask from our players is to take advantage of one of the best coaching staff ever assembled in our football program, stay positive, and chip away. We will be with them through the ups and downs, the whole way.
We finally have a leader we all collectively believe in. So the things are going to be different in Bruins Nation.
GO BRUINS.
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Rosebowl Spring Scimmage Open Thread
by Nestor
on Apr 26, 2008 3:41 PM PDT
in Football
Well it has already been an awesome day on BN.
If you are out at the Rose Bowl have an extra beer for all of us exiles living aways from the Southland.
Enjoy a beautiful night at Arroyo Secco:
Photo Credit:fourflatfive's photostream (flickr)
If you are coming back on BN after the scrimmage, you can post your quick notes in the comment threads.
If you have extended noted/impression to share (more than 200 words) please put them up in the diaries. And as always we love pictures.
So with that have at it. Thread it up in a our special Sat. night spring scrimmage open thread.
GO BRUINS.
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Relentless Optimism
by Nestor
on Apr 26, 2008 10:44 AM PDT
in Football
I will get to the details on PC and BO's injuries below. But let's start with what should be in the docket of every member of this Nation who lives in the Southland: spring scrimmage at the Rose Bowl. If you are looking for the details go here. The scrimmage starts at 7 pm. But you can get there at 3 and start all your tail gaiting.
Bruins are going to be without their two top QBs. Dohn has more details on their injuries:
Cowan would miss the 2008 season if surgery is performed. UCLA said it was not determined if surgery was needed, but sources said reconstructive surgery was the expected path.
The only thing keeping it from being a finalized decision is hope when the swelling lessens, the tear is not as bad as feared, and Cowan can rehabilitate the ligament. The MRI also showed a torn meniscus.
Cowan had arthroscopic surgery on the knee in February, and sat out Tuesday's practice because of soreness in the knee.
"(Doctors) don't feel they can make an accurate, or the best decision, until the swelling goes down," Neuheisel said. "It's not (a) total (tear), but it's more than what was in there on the Tuesday MRI. The Tuesday MRI was fine, normal."
The news regarding Olson's injury was concerning, but not nearly to the level Cowan experienced. X-rays showed Olson, who was Cowan's backup, fractured the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot and will be out six to eight weeks. Because of the area of the break, Neuheisel said surgery to insert a screw to aid in healing is often needed because of a lack of blood flow.
"Ben will consult with his folks, and make that decision," Neuheisel said. "I'm told that he is leaning toward having the surgery."
Neuheisel was confident that Cowan and Olson had enough time to heal and prepare before training camp opens in August.
"The learning curve doesn't get hit too much," Neuheisel said.
"Both can continue to work and study tape and develop a more comfortable feeling with our offense. . . . With Ben, even if he is out eight weeks, he'll have most of June and all July to get ready."
Given the state of QBs, offensive line, LBs, inexperience at secondary, and grueling schedule I am not going to hold out hope for going to a bowl game.
That said, we are not going to concede next season. No way.
We are going to take my cue from our head football coach and remain as relentlessly optimistic as possible (just like we did during Coach Howland's first two seasons in Westwood). Chris Dufresne From the LA Times gives us a little taste of CRN's relentless optimism and why he is smiling through the adversity he has faced in his first spring practice:
How fast?
On Oct. 22, 2001, UCLA was 6-0 and No. 3 in the first Bowl Championship Series standings. The Bruins did own the town. USC, coming off a loss to Notre Dame, was 2-5 under first-year Pete Carroll.
Yes, that was this century.
"I have studied Pete the last several years," Neuheisel said. "He had a plan and stuck to it. He sold, sold, sold and people bought in. It was no accident."
Neuheisel wants to use Carroll's strengths against him - sounds like a chapter out of Sun Tzu's "Art of War."
"He went 100 miles per hour from the start and it finally took root," Neuheisel said of Carroll. "...I think the same thing can happen here."
Well I sense none of that hopelessness of Dorrel era today. The feeling for me is a little different What is telling is how CRN has gone out of his way to boost both PC and BO in public following their injuries and expressing how he believe in their ability to come back (while mentioning the opportunity for other three kids).
So again there is no reason to get down folks. Go out at the Rose Bowl. Enjoy a beautiful Saturday afternoon/evening of Bruin camaraderie. Fire up that grill, drink up some cold frosties, and take in Bruin football from the stands of the greatest venue in this game.
I have full confidence that no matter what happens our team is going to come out ready, as prepared as they can be, and give it everything they have on both sides of the ball this Fall. Just like it does at Spaulding and at the Rose Bowl, the world of UCLA football is going to remain relentlessly optimistic from my corner of the world here in BN.
One more time : if you are looking for details on tonight's scrimmage go here. May be you will get to see ATV do this:
Oh yeaaah. LET'S GO (OUT TO THE ROSE BOWL).
GO BRUINS.
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"Yes, and I do not think it is even close."
by Achilles
on Apr 25, 2008 9:11 PM PDT
in Football
Brian Dohn, blogging in the Daily News comes out and says what I've been thinking since the beginning of spring:
Yes, and I do not think it is even close.
Let's be clear: Karl Dorrell may have damaged the football program far more seriously than Steve Lavin damaged the basketball program. It only took Ben Howland one great recruiting class (Aaron Afflalo, Jordan Farmar, Lo Mata, Josh Shipp) to put the basketball program back on track. The task facing Rick Neuheisel is far, far more daunting.
I'm disinterested in the relative differences between the UCLA basketball and football programs and the general differences between football and basketball. Comparing Karl Dorrell and Steve Lavin is like comparing hanging to the firing squad.
The point is, while the football team may be populated mostly by good kids with good hearts and good grades, they simply lack the talent to seriously compete in the Pac 10 conference.
This is particularly true along the offensive line. I'm loathe to take Dohn all that seriously, but when he agrees with me, I guess I'll quote him again:
The quantity wasn't the issue, but you are on the money with the other things. Plus, many of these kids were recruited for Tom Cable's finesse style of blocking, then were asked to be power blockers.
I don't know what the reasons are, I just know the offensive line is easily the worst in terms of talent that I can remember. Again, I'm not picking on the kid's effort or desire -- I'm merely stating the obvious: they aren't all that good. Not only that, there is no depth at all.
I've no doubt enthusiasm will be high at Saturday's scrimmage. That's what the spring scrimmage is all about. If you're going, have fun. But don't get too excited. Enthusiasm rooted in the hiring of the infectious Neuheisel and his hiring of Norm Chow, his retention of DeWayne Walker and some top recruits arriving in the fall, must be tempered by the realization that the former coach left the cupboard largely bare.
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