CFN's Baseline ...

by Nestor on Jun 27, 2005 10:54 AM PDT in Football

CFN has a nutty Q&A up, and one of them involved KD's bunch:

I am of the opinion that UCLA will be college football's biggest surprise in 2005 due to the number of experienced players returning. When looking at their roster from top to bottom (assume they will be relatively healthy) how do you see them stacking up? I know Oklahoma and USC are on the schedule but outside of these two games how do you see the Bruins finishing? - DB

A: The schedule is certainly there with California, Oregon State and Arizona State, arguably the three best Pac 10 teams outside of USC, coming to Pasadena, and there's no Oregon. The road games are all winnable until the end playing at San Diego State, Washington State, Stanford and Arizona. If the quarterback situation is fine by the opener and the secondary improves, there's no reason to hope for anything less than a 7-4 regular season. Just as important is the hope for Karl Dorrell's team to look like a potential Pac 10 contender for 2006. Staying healthy and getting consistent play from both sides of the ball will be important from the opening kickoff at San Diego.

Last sentence is the key here IMO. So far the talks on various Bruin message boards have the baseline expectations set around 8 or 9 games. Everyone at BN is sticking with Ajax's expectation that KD MUST WIN 9 GAMES. However, may be just may be 7 games could be acceptable depending on how we finish the season. For example, 7 games could be acceptable if we finish the season on a 5-6 game winning streak, with a new quarterback like BO or Cowan at the helm. On the flip side, if we start the season 4-1 and finish with 7 wins, stumbling down the stretch, KD will need to do the honorable thing by resigning and leaving Westwood immediately after the season is over.

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How is Cowan looking?

I remember he was a pretty damn good WR prospect coming out of high school.

Is he playing QB full-time? Or is he splitting time between WR and QB?

Great site btw.

by Michael on Jun 27, 2005 1:11 PM PDT reply actions

Cowan is supposedly looking great ...

From what I have been reading on the premium boards, Cowan has been looking great. In fact he may pass BO in the depth chart, and come up at No. 2 behind DO (if DO returns totally healthy and 100 percent). Coaches reportedly loves what Cowan has been doing in practice.

by bluestreet on Jun 27, 2005 2:50 PM PDT up reply actions

What bluestreet said ...

Patick Cowan has been looking great at QB (according to the reports we are reading via message boards). Perhaps you were thinking of his older brother Joe Cowan - who is the WR - and we are going to count on him a lot to make some key contributions this upcoming seasn.

And, thanks for the compliments. We love the CFR (assuming you are Michael from CFR). So the admiration is mutual.

by Nestor on Jun 27, 2005 3:00 PM PDT up reply actions

Win Win

Every Bruin fan should have the 9 win or bust motto this season. If KD can't get it done this year, we can bring in some big name coaches and let Ben Olson take us to the promised land.

This season is a win-win for Bruin fans. Either KD shows he's a good coach, OR we will finaly go after our Ben Howland in football.

by Bruinstudent on Jun 27, 2005 1:51 PM PDT reply actions

Problem is...

You're relying on Pete Fiutak as your baseline commentator.

by CollegeFootballResource on Jun 27, 2005 11:38 PM PDT reply actions

Not really relying on Fiutak

Just mentioning him. Our baseline expectation is set at minimum 9 win season (and to be kind ... I will include the bowl game in it too). Let's see if KD can pass that reasonable test.

by Nestor on Jun 28, 2005 8:54 AM PDT up reply actions