Blackest Friday for the Bruins

Well folks, this brings a pretty black Friday for the Bruins to an end.  The day started off with a loss for Howland's squad at Madison Square Garden, falling to VCU 89-85, with "leaders" like Honeycutt and Nelson either asleep (Honeycutt) or pouting (Nelson) for the first half.  For more on that disheartening, sloppy loss, check out P's post-game basketball thread here.

Following a choke job at MSG (speaking of which, why is Josh Smith not getting the ball more?!), CRN's Bruins went out and got destroyed in the desert by the score of 55-34.  The score doesn't even really show how thorough ASU beat down the Bruins.

In an eerie repeat of last Thursday's debacle in Seattle, the Bruins started out hot, running out to a 17-0 lead in the first quarter, with the offense showing some flashes of creativity that made Norm Chow a hot name.  After that, Chuck B. went back to his usual ways, making ASU backup QB Brock Osweiler look like a Heisman candidate, with boring, vanilla, soft coverage that got torched by ASU both on the ground and in the air.  Why he still has a job is beyond me at this point.

More after the jump.

Norm didn't do himself any favors either, phoning it in the rest of the game.  Yes, there was a few more creative play calls, but after the first quarter, Chow went back to his typical unimaginative play-calling, epitomized by the Bruins failing to score after getting the ball with a first and goal on the ASU 6 yard line.  Four plays to get six yard for six points.  Net result for the Bruins?  Five yards and zero points.

But Chow isn't the only one to blame today.  The blame gets passed around all around the place, because the entire team blew this one. The offense was bland and unimaginative.  34 points against a terrible ASU defense isn't anything to be proud of.  Defense was an absolute joke, with poor tackling, terrible schemes, and soft coverage that made me wonder if ASU had Cam Newton at QB today.  Even special teams was a joke, giving up a kick return TD.

Just as predicted in the pre-game thread, the Bruins didn't have the drive to win, looking like they were going through the motions today.  With this loss, the Bruins are officially eliminated from bowl contention, meaning that next week's game against U$C will be a match-up of teams with no post-season hopes.  At least the Trogans have an excuse for not having a bowl game.

As Nestor pointed out after the Washington loss:

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.

You could say the exact same thing after this loss too.  When this season is over, CRN needs to seriously look at his coaching staff and make major changes.  If Bullough or any Walker disciple is back, that is going to be a huge strike against CRN (and believe you me, if you think BN won't go after CRN like BN did KD, you're kidding yourself).  CRN still has time to turn it around and right the ship, but this season has shown he will need to make some tough choices to move this program in the right direction, starting with revamping his coaching staff.

Another week, another embarrassing UCLA football loss.  Not much to add at this point.  Fire away with your thoughts, observations, etc. here.  If you have extended thoughts, feel free to throw them up in the FanPost section.

GO BRUINS.