A Miserable Failure

by Nestor on Oct 16, 2006 5:14 AM PDT in Football

Briah Dohn gives out his grade for the Bruin coaching staff:

Coaching: Defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker took the blame for being out-schemed in the first quarter, when the Ducks went ahead 20-3. Meanwhile, UCLA's decision not to go no-huddle in the closing minutes was strange, although it likely would not have mattered.

Grade: F

Uh yeah ... KD's much hyped coaching hire - DeWayne Walker - who came from one of the most over hyped and underachieving franchises in the NFL got exposed when his unit when up against a credible Pac-10 offense. Bruin defense was shredded and humiliated in our first three series, which put us in a huge hole right from the get go.

Apparently DeWayne Walker by his own admission (at least this time he didn't try to pass the buck by blaming one of his players) was outschemed by the Oregon offensives coaches:

What transpired at Autzen Stadium was distressing, beginning with defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker's admission he was out-schemed in the first quarter. Against a powerful offense like Oregon's, that does not give the players much of a chance for success.

And what a doozy of a first quarter. Oregon ran 17 plays for 164 yards and scored three touchdowns. UCLA was allowing 50 rushing yards per game, and the Ducks had 64 on 10 carries in the first quarter.

To make matters worse, Ducks quarterback Dennis Dixon completed 6of 7 passes for 100 yards and two scores in the period.

"I felt (Oregon's offensive line) was big, and I felt I couldn't go toe-to-toe with them," Walker said. "I had to give our guys a chance and try to bring pressure and bring penetration. I think once I made that adjustment, the game changed a little bit. I wish I did that in the first quarter."

To Walker's credit, his adjustments were made by the end of the first quarter, and the defense played well enough during the final 45 minutes to give the offense a chance to get UCLA (4-2, 2-2 Pac-10) back in the game.

But there were still a plethora of missed tackles, penalties to keep drives alive and the inability to solve Dixon, who also ran for 69 yards.

Well defense did make some adjustments, something which doesn't happen quite often among Dorrell's coaching staff, but it was a little late. And it didn't help the fact that the offense looked like bunch of clowns taking stupid penalties, misfiring in pass routes, and basically self-destructing all afternoon looking less disciplined and out of sync than a Bob Toledo coached football team (oops did I just that?).

Anyways let's get back to our vaunted, over-hyped, formerly ranked no. 2 defense (it's no. 9 now and will not stay in the top-10 for that long). Uh yeah it's improved a little from last year. So we are now not the worst defense in the nation. Hooray! But we still can't really tackle:

Last season, poor tackling was a major issue for the Bruins, who were horrible against the run. That problem resurfaced against the Ducks, who gained a lot of yards after first contact with a UCLA defender.

"You're not going to make every tackle, but we missed some at some unfortunate times for us," UCLA Coach Karl Dorrell said. "And they executed well and blocked us well, which gave them a chance to make some plays against us."

No Karl. What's unfortunate is that we have to deal with an incompetent, clueless poser like you as our head coach who is flushing this program into the toilet. What is really unfortunate that we are stuck with caring about a football program with no sense of purpose or direction, content with winning 6 to 8 games per season, and pulling out miracle 10 win seasons every 4-5 years, when a QB has finally mastered your sh!tty, ugly "West Coast offense."

I guess we will have to start talking about our next Saturday's game soon. Yeah the Notre Dame game, which so many of us have been looking forward to for more than a decade. However, I don't envy the folks who shelled out hundreds to go on a road trip to see a football program led by a miserable failure of a head coach, who not only is an unqualified quitter to lead a team in front of Touchdown Jesus, but is probably not even qualified to lead a mediocre D-1AA program. Sickening.

Oh and GO BRUINS.

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