Bumped. I will not be able to chime in with extended thoughts until later this evening. 66 seems to have captured a good portion of my notes. So bumping this up to get the morning/afternoon convo going. Of course you have extended thoughts, fire them up in the fanposts. GO BRUINS. -N

I'm not sure that there are any big "take aways" from this game -- obviously SDSU is regrouping and rebuilding and not a touchstone for where we stand, today. But, I do think this game helps us see where we will be, soon. To me, the future looks very bright.

• For me, the biggest take away is that I now see what a UCLA Norm Chow offense can look like. And, I really like it. Throwing the ball down field, throwing to a lot of receivers, keeping the D off balance. Balanced attack -- 38 runs and 31 passes. A running game. And, a running game that gains yards up the middle. With an O line and the right kids at the skill positions, we will move the ball. Bless NC for his patience last year. I think he saw the potential at UCLA and was willing to go through the rebuilding process. We are still in it. Think about what we will be when we have a team full of CRN/NC recruits.
• We are a young team and will make young team mistakes. Not hard to see and we all seem to agree that we will have our young moments (which correspond, in many ways to the gray moments some of us Geezers have). But, to me the key is not to look at the mistakes but rather to see what we do after making them, and I think we pulled things together and responded well.
• Our young kids played very well. Very well indeed. It's been documented, no need to focus on it, but several kids getting their first playing time looked  good. I love our depth at the skill positions -- our running backs and receivers have great potential. It looks like we will be running deeper rotations at those positions. If the coaches can get the players to buy into "fewer touches" for the greater good and egos don't get in the way, we will give the staff a lot of combinations to throw against the other team. We have speed, finesse and power on our bench -- just pick the right tool for the right job and get it done. More after the jump.

This will be an interesting year. We look better. But so do other Pac 10 schools. Cal was expected to be strong and looked very strong. Washington looked good -- Locker is the real deal. 
Was it only two years ago I went into every fall Saturday with my eyes half shut -- wanting to see the game but not really wanting to see it? Now I can't wait. Thank you CRN, coaches and players. You are bringing us back to where we belong.