Spring Football News & Notes

by Nestor on Apr 15, 2008 4:07 AM PDT in Football

Unfortunately we have to start this edition of spring football news and notes some bad news. Bruins are losing Aleksey Lanis, one of the better athletes from their OL due to injury related issues. Dohn listed the following factors behind Aleksey’s decision to retire:

First, he had three significant injuries in his two years as a starter, including two knee surgeries. Also, he was married and had a son in the offseason, and wants to do this for his family. His plan is to finish his degree in the fall and then go to graduate school while pursuing a career in business.
Lanis said he recently had his application to UCLA's graduate school turned down, so he will look elsewhere. I'll have some comments from Lanis in Tuesday's paper.
I asked UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel if he tried to talk Lanis out of retiring.
"It was clear in his face that he wasn’t ready to go on,'' Neuheisel said. "If I thought there was hope, I probably would have pushed harder and harder, but he was pretty set in his decision, and you have to respect that.’’

We wish Aleksey the best of luck. Although I am intrigued about the decision making process of our grad school admission staff, who decided not to admit Aleksey into their program. I guess it all depends on the grades Aleksey had. However, I would like to think if Aleksey had decent grades, given his contributions to UCLA as a student athlete, he would have gotten a special consideration by the graduate school programs. I would certainly like to think if AA2 is applying for graduate school programs, given what we have heard about him being a great student, it would be a no brainer for the staff of whatever UCLA graduate school he is applying to admit him into the program. Anyway, let’s hope everything works out well for Aleksey.

Aleksey’s departure means other youngsters in the program will have the opportunity to step up. That means Sean Sheller, 6-foot-5, 282-pound high recruited soph will get his chance. From the LA Times:

"I looked at that spot as my spot," said Sheller, who played at Walnut High. "Nobody was going to take it from me after spring. I wanted this spot for two years now. Now my youth is gone, so it's time step up."

As a high school senior, Sheller was ranked 18th among tackles nationally by Rivals.com. His progress was slowed by a knee injury his freshman year at UCLA.

"He's just needs to get a little stronger and a little bigger," Neuheisel said.

In addition to Sheller, Micah Kia, another highly recruited OL will have the opportunity to fill the leadership void at OL (from the same article linked above):

Kia, who started eight games as a sophomore, saw his value to the offensive line unit increase with Lanis' departure.

"He's going to have to be leader," Palcic said. "It's time for him to step up."

More from the LAT on how Palcic’s scheme could help this young OL core:

Palcic's philosophy could help the group. The Bruins are expected to zone block the majority of the time.

"I'm not saying that we'll do that exclusively, but the majority of our concepts will be zone," Palcic said. "I don't think you can give an offensive lineman too many concepts to master, because there are too many defensive variations. Therefore you can be the jack-of-all-trades and master of none. I'd rather settle down into a few basic concepts and be very efficient at what we do."

Well we are going to keep our fingers crossed. However, at this point I am operating from the mindset that it will take at least two or three years to rebuild this line. Let’s hope our coaches can bring in some quality recruits in next couple of years to add much needed depth in the trenches.

While CRN and Palcic are working through the issues at the OL, DeWayne Walker is encouraging competition to improve our young secondary. From the Daily News:

Returning starter Alterraun Verner has one of cornerback spots nailed down and fifth-year senior Michael Norris is the leader at the other corner, although incoming freshman Rahim Moore could push Norris, Bruins defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker said.

At strong safety, Walker said senior Bret Lockett has done well to solidify his spot as Chris Horton's successor, but junior Aaron Ware is competing to win the free safety position.

"I think Lockett is fine," Walker said. "We just want to make sure he's consistent. I think that will be a spot where we definitely need depth behind Lockett, and Ware, that job is going to be hot."

Walker said incoming freshman Tony Dye could compete for playing time at free safety.

"He's an IQ guy," Walker said. "He's smart. He's a quick learner. And you still have Glenn Love, but I'm not going to give up on him.

"Right now, Ware, I feel more comfortable with him. He's just going to have to be a guy that doesn't make mistakes. If he doesn't make mistakes, he'll be fine."

Can’t wait to see what kids like Rahim Moore will have to offer this fall. Also we have been hearing lot of great things about the athleticism of Glenn Love. Hopefully the intense competition for these spots will lead to Walker putting together a ferocious secondary who will emerge as worthy successors to the legends of Easley, Darby, Turner, Henderson, Grey, Goodwin et al. Lastly, it’s the off season. So sooner or later we will be writing about scheduling future road trips. Kyle over at Dawg Sports is already waging a campaign for a UCLA-Georgia home and home series. Given the fantastic experience many of us had during the UCLA-Alabama series, I would love to see CRN lead our boys between the hedges going up against Marc Richt and legendary Georgia football program sometime in the coming years. A Georgia-UCLA series is a no brainer to me. I will write more on that topic sometime this summer. But no one should wait for my thoughts on it.

GO BRUINS.

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athens!

didnt think i could get any more fired up for bruin football, but the thought of that game is amazing. i was lucky enough to go to the 96 tenn game and the 01 alabama game. also saw an espn game day game in athens, ga vs tenn in 98. got to figure bruins/dawgs would garner the game day crew. cant wait for that bruin bash. th

by phillyphan on Apr 15, 2008 7:21 AM PDT 0 recs

As an Anderson Alum

I would have been a bit ticked off if they had accepted Lanis. The article doesn't seem to identify which grad school he applied to, but references his desire to pursue business and perhaps accounting. So, if it was Anderson that he was applying to, I'm glad they didn't accept him.

Even if his grades were good/great, the average age at Anderson is roughly 28. Work and life experiences are a big contributing factor to admissions, and frankly Lanis is not there yet. I think it would have been a disservice to him to attend the school without some type of work experience. I think where his case differs from AA2, is the nature of the grad school programs that each would be interested in. A masters in Poly Sci doesn't have the same emphasis on previous work experience and would potentially be a better fit for a student coming straight from undergrad.

Plus, I need to justify my years of investment banking torture somehow...

by Nars on Apr 15, 2008 8:41 AM PDT 0 recs

still

Mr. Lanis made one hell of a contribution to his school and, now that we're officially back to "holistic" admissions, we simply gotta start taking better care of our own this way. He's clearly no flunkie and put a LOT of skin in the game, so I don't see how anyone, Anderson or not, would be "upset" at seeing a very deserving young scholar get his chance at transitional self-improvement.

There's just got to be more to the story than that. That Conde Nast link has lots of value to add there.

GO BRUIN BLUE.

by theREAL_LOGAN5 on Apr 15, 2008 10:12 AM PDT up 0 recs

No affiliation

To put it simply, the UCLA School of Business has nothing to do with UCLA. It is almost a disadvantage to go to UCLA if you want to go to Anderson. I am not sure how it is for the other professional schools (not grad programs, but law school and med school), but there aren't as many UCLA alumni at the b-school. I was wait-listed at the med school when I applied while in college, and wait-listed at the business school when I applied five years later. Ended up getting into NYU.

The lack of work experience is a 100% deal killer for b-school, especially if all you've done in college is play football, as opposed to having significant job experience. In other words, he probably doesn't have much to add for the other students or to any discussion, given that there are a lot of team projects. I have never met anyone who went to b-school right after college. The youngest people had two years of work experience.

by tasser10 on Apr 15, 2008 10:44 AM PDT up 0 recs

There is no such thing ...

as the UCLA School of Business.

The management school at UCLA is called the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management.

It's very competitive to get in.

Not only that, but typically top graduate programs go outside their own undergraduate affiliations for admissions. UCLA undergrads do get into Anderson, but receive no special consideration.

Lanis would have had to had an extraordinary undergraduate record to get into UCLA Anderson straight out of his undergraduate program, without any work experience.

In any event, it would have been next to impossible for him to arrange an Anderson Schedule around his football schedule.

Go Bruins

by Achilles on Apr 15, 2008 10:59 AM PDT up 0 recs

That's what I meant

Thanks Achilles, I meant to put quotation marks around the "UCLA School of Business". A lot of people don't realize Anderson is in fact a business school where you get a MBA (among other degrees), and not your typical grad program.

I chuckled when you mentioned Lanis trying to work football into his b-school schedule...

by tasser10 on Apr 15, 2008 11:36 AM PDT up 0 recs

Does this mean that they can stop dunning me..

..for contributions? I graduated from the UCLA Undergraduate School of Business in 1968 (in the last class they offered) and still get hit for contributions.

I am sure it was for economic reasons, but my BS in Business Admin sure took me a lot further than a commensurate BA from letters & Sciences would have done. I got some (relatively) real-world experience including learning IBM 360 assembler and COBOL that were practically shrink-wrap products back in those days. (Folks were still using Fortran.)

Bandwagon-hopping here, practical business experience (particularly accountancy) is an eye-opener and were he to spend several years in that arena, his bang-per-tuition-buck would be much better spent.

Besides, any young man who has the drive and competitiveness to handle studies, get a degree from UCLA, and hold down a starting spot on a major college football team would be a good catch for many firms.

God, it's great to be a Bruin!

by whp68 on Apr 15, 2008 11:42 AM PDT up 0 recs

I remember my one computer class

I worked all semester long, and finally made a program which would -- infallibly -- pick the largest number out of any group of numbers which were fed into the machine (provided that the numbers were all integers and were all positive.) That was it. My contribution to computer science.

I have to say that I was a bit squeamish about turning the program in, because I feared the weapons applications, but I went ahead and did it.

by Fox 71 on Apr 15, 2008 1:28 PM PDT up 0 recs

Eminently commendable..your bravery and humility..

Fox. On the other had you seen some of my efforts at writing briefs for one of those typical familial civil suits that arise when one passes beyond the veil with an imperfect will, you would roll on the floor. It was a cross between Perry Mason and Groucho Marks.

I shall leave the practice of law to the finer minds like yourself and SJH.

God, it's great to be a Bruin!

by whp68 on Apr 15, 2008 3:34 PM PDT up 0 recs

I agree with the Anderson alum (and other posters)

I went to UCLA undergrad and then after three years of work went to Harvard for my MBA. The stock of business schools (and probably law schools, to a lesser extent) rises and falls with the selectivity of admissions and the quality of the students, including work experience. It would be a disservice to the university that we love to relax these standards, even for one of our own.

Aleksey would be well served by taking a job and building some work experience that can enable him to be a more substantive contributor to his business school class. And if he doesn't get such experience and his grades are mediocre...well, there's always the Marshall School of business at USC. :P

Go Bruins!

by nvandyk on Apr 15, 2008 11:18 AM PDT 0 recs