Not sure what else can we really say right now. The game is still going on but it is over. UCLA is about to go down to Washington in Seattle in perhaps the ugliest and most disheartening loss during Rick Neuheisel's tenure as the head coach of the Bruins. The final score in favor of Washington was 24-7. You can check the box score will be up here. It could have been lot uglier as the Huskies kept killing themselves with penalties all night long.
With about 10 days to prepare for the most important game of the season Norm Chow's offense put together perhaps the most putrid performance in what has been a massively disappointing and underachieving season (to date). Against one of the worst defense in the conference Bruins got off to a decent start in the first half by putting together a 92 yard drive to go up 7-0. Since then though the offense went into a conservative shell was thoroughly bottled up by a well prepared Husky defense (which didn't have to work too hard to prepare for Chow's 5 plays including head-scratcher 3rd down passes to Corey Harkey).
I'd give Bruin defense some credit for keeping us in the game because they kept us in the game. However, I can't because it could have been really ugly for Chuck Bullough's unit if not for the bad Husky penalties that kept negating huge gashing runs by Chris Polk. Plus they were taking on a team that was playing with hurt QB with cracked ribs.
The special team was also a total disaster with missed FGs and ugly punt returns. The whole team imploded once again on national TV embarrassing themselves and embarrassing the four letters. Yes, there are injury issues with this team. Yes, we are young (an excuse that seems to be in play in Westwood every year). Yes, we went to a back up. Yet, there are just no justification for how clueless, how out of sync, how unprepared and undisciplined this team looked with the season on the line. This was not the first time we experienced this kind of implosion this season and it is very difficult to take.We have said since the Oregon game the careers of the entire coaching staff are going to be in line for this season. Tonight's game was a huge test and needless to say everyone FAILED in spectacular fashion. I guess the season is not over. We have two games left and still a "technical shot" at a bowl game. However, this team needs to forget all of that and just needs to figure out how it can put together a performance based on fundamentals.
I don't really have a lot of analysis to add at this point of the night. There will be plenty of time for extended reflections taking in the big picture. I will leave the comments up to you. If you have extended thoughts and reflections, please put them in fanpost section. Fire away.
GO BRUINS.