Again if you haven't heard it, make sure to hear our own Odysseus's take on this weekend's huge game on Sports Bloggers Live radio. Speaking of the game, Dohn has couple of key notes:
Center of trouble: Offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Tom Cable said he met with center Mike McCloskey to tell the senior he needed better play out of him.
UCLA's running game suffered against Oklahoma and Washington because of poor play from the offensive line.
"I think Mike has had some trouble, which has been a big surprise to us," Cable said. "The young guys (Shannon Tevaga, Chris Joseph and Brian Abraham) are playing very well. Oklahoma - there were some mental errors. The last game against- inconsistencies."
[...]
And McCloskey, a four-year starter, added his play the past two games contributed heavily to the problem.
"I feel I should be one of the key players on the offensive line," McCloskey said. "(The play) is good, but it's not good enough. We expect great things out of this team, and in order to do so I have to play, basically, at the top level play after play, and I've had a couple of mess-ups."
Let's hope MM brings his A game this weekend. We need him to step up badly to open up the running lanes for Drew and Markey, which will also loosen up things for Drew and his receivers. And KD his boosting the 5 men receiver rotation to 7 for this weekend, which is good news IMO. We are going to need every one of our weapons to pull out a win in this game.UCLA's running game suffered against Oklahoma and Washington because of poor play from the offensive line.
"I think Mike has had some trouble, which has been a big surprise to us," Cable said. "The young guys (Shannon Tevaga, Chris Joseph and Brian Abraham) are playing very well. Oklahoma - there were some mental errors. The last game against- inconsistencies."
[...]
And McCloskey, a four-year starter, added his play the past two games contributed heavily to the problem.
"I feel I should be one of the key players on the offensive line," McCloskey said. "(The play) is good, but it's not good enough. We expect great things out of this team, and in order to do so I have to play, basically, at the top level play after play, and I've had a couple of mess-ups."
Now on the other side of the ball, Lonnie White looks into the status of our defensive line, where (redshirt freshmen) Lombard will be starting his first game of the season. Kerr is excited about having more bodies in his DL rotation:
"When you can play more guys, the better off you are," UCLA defensive coordinator Larry Kerr said.
This is going to be tough game for our defense, no doubt. But this game is on our home turf, and it looks like we may have a close to sell out crowd getting behind the Bruins. And, we should have all the intangibles, in terms of desire, urgency to win this game, based upon our history of last seven years. So, yes ... as O said in his radio show, we expect KD to win on Saturday, and notch another win to continue the validation process in his money year (third year)in the program.