All the woulda-coulda-shouldas continues in Westwood. After the Rice game it took the coaches more than a week to stop talking about all the woulda-coulda-shouldas in that disastrous performance. So, naturally, the Bruin coaches continued to philosophize about all that went up in flames in Seattle. OC Register's Kuwada writes about Svoboda taking responsibility (again):
Explanations, and no excuses.
"You always have a variety of passes ready for the game, and if you're asking if there are a few passes I would have thrown in retrospect, absolutely. ... I can't deny that," he said. "There were things left on the script that you look back and you go, 'Dang, that would have been a good one.' Maybe the mistake that I made was that you feel the momentum of the other team and then you get protective of the lead that you have. ...
"And then the execution part, you get a little gun shy, because some of the things that we've been really good at executing, all of a sudden it seems foreign. So you get a little gun shy from that standpoint, too. But in retrospect, you say, you know what? You practiced that stuff. It's on the script. Do it."
Trying to shelter inexperienced quarterback Ben Olson might be part of the equation - another learning experience.
"You're not doing your quarterback any favors by handling him with kid gloves in that scenario, and he can feel that anyway. You're trying to protect him, and you're actually causing him to lose confidence in the process," Svoboda said. "But what you think about is the team. 'OK, what if we turn the ball over?' That causes you to be a little conservative, and you just can't do it that way because the things you practice are going to be there."
Svoboda and co. makes it sound like Ben Olson is a little baby who needs shelter and pampering. They make it sound like UCLA is the only team in D-1 football that is breaking in a new QB who needs more "experience." Never mind the fact Olson, who was the number 1 player out of high school has more than 2 years to digest Karl Dorrell "West Coast Offense" (WCO). Dorrell continued to use the experience excuse yesterday. From the LA Times:
"You always have a variety of passes ready for the game, and if you're asking if there are a few passes I would have thrown in retrospect, absolutely. ... I can't deny that," he said. "There were things left on the script that you look back and you go, 'Dang, that would have been a good one.' Maybe the mistake that I made was that you feel the momentum of the other team and then you get protective of the lead that you have. ...
"And then the execution part, you get a little gun shy, because some of the things that we've been really good at executing, all of a sudden it seems foreign. So you get a little gun shy from that standpoint, too. But in retrospect, you say, you know what? You practiced that stuff. It's on the script. Do it."
Trying to shelter inexperienced quarterback Ben Olson might be part of the equation - another learning experience.
"You're not doing your quarterback any favors by handling him with kid gloves in that scenario, and he can feel that anyway. You're trying to protect him, and you're actually causing him to lose confidence in the process," Svoboda said. "But what you think about is the team. 'OK, what if we turn the ball over?' That causes you to be a little conservative, and you just can't do it that way because the things you practice are going to be there."
Dorrell on sophomore quarterback Ben Olson: "He's had obviously some success in the Utah game and he had success in our previous two games too. They've been different in terms of types of success it was. He's a young quarterback that's gaining experience. He's going to get better and better. He's realizing certain things every week."
What is there to realize? That the Bruins have one of the worst passing offenses in the Pac-10, throwing for less than 200 yards a game? Bruins passing offense is only better than awful Washington and Arizona teams. Woops shouldn't have mentioned those two I guess.So all the talk out of Westwood is that we have to open it up and pass more in the next game. Here is Dorrell in the OC Register again:
"I need more offense. We need more offense. We need to get everybody involved offensively," he said. "We're hitting a number of receivers who are catching passes, but we need to hit some passes down the field. We need to complete passes, we need to convert third downs, we need to run the football. We need to do all of those things."
Uh, that is nice and all. But it will be interesting to see how effective the Bruins passing is game against Stanford, which happens to have the 3rd best passing defense in the conference, giving up 164 passing yards a game. That also probably hinges on the fact that the Cardinals happen to have the worst rush defense in the conference giving up an average of 312 yards on the ground per game. So you'd think the Bruins will go into this game with a plan centered around running the ball down their throats at will, and putting Ben in position to throw and complete high percentage passes on not so obvious passing downs, and then taking some chances down the field. We're sure we're not going to see the same run, run, pass sequence, where our RBs (cough*Bell*cough) are just slamming up the middle for short yardage gains on first and second downs, only to put Ben on 3rd and long situations in every drive.Anyways, it will be interesting to see how the Bruins come out in a game which they should put away before half time. Note that after all the Van bashing Walker did in public, Rodney Van will start this Saturday (per Dohn). Our defense should have a banner day against a team, which will bring in the second worst scoring team in the conference (15.2 pts a game). BTW, the worst scoring offense belongs to Zona, who comes into the Rose Bowl the following game. So these should be two games in which the Bruins need to post convincing victories. Because by now it should be obvious to the coaches that this Nation is getting sick and tired of all the woulda-coulda-shouldas we keep hiring during Monday Morning QB sessions every game week.
GO BRUINS.