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.
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.