BN Gameday Roundup: News & Notes On 2010 UCLA Spring Game

Wow. Ladies bring home Bru-105 (offer them your congrats here). The baseball team starts with a nail-biting win to open a huge road series against Arizona. Brian Price and ATV are headed off to the NFL. And we are just getting started here this weekend. I guess the timing of today's spring football game couldn't have been more perfect. There will be lot of good news celebrate from this weekend as thousands of Bruin fans will be gathering to have a good time and check out our football team one more time before the summer camp.

If you still need to check in all the details around today's festivities here is the link to our fanpost and the official site one more time. We should tell you that don't wait till the last minute to get there. Menelaus is already around the Rose Bowl and he just sent an email a little while ago giving the heads up that there is also another big event going on around the stadium (raising awareness re. Autism). Parking is going to be a bit of a challenge.

So HEADS UP: get there early (or soon) if you want to get settled in and tailgate. Give yourself plenty of time before heading down to the game. More after the jump.

The spring game tonight will be all about having fun and getting out healthy heading into this off-season. CRN called it a "dress-rehearsal":

"That game is trying to get through it, have guys have a night under the lights, feel fast -- it's kind of a dress rehearsal for a game. And head coaches are only trying to get everyone out of it healthy."

Per Prince (although not his direct quote) the game is more of an epilogue than the final exam:

Kevin Prince, who came in as the clear-cut No. 1 quarterback and appears to have strengthened his hold on that spot, agreed the spring game should be viewed more as epilogue than final exam.

"You can't just judge everything off that," Prince said, "because we've done so much in the 14 practices before that.

"But the spring game is more for us just to go out, have some fun and show the fans what we've been working on and get them excited for the season."

At this point I don't think we can count on this game to be some kind of revelation. As A said yesterday we know what there is to know about this team before the freshmen check in this summer. This game should be a party for all of us who will be lucky enough to enjoy a beautiful night at the Rose Bowl. That said if you haven't done it yet make sure you get your guesses in before the game starts tonight. It will always be fun to compare it against the final stats (no matter how insignificant they are in the larger scheme of things).

How can we have another spring ball post with a note on the "revolver"? Norm Chow offered couple of more interesting observation on the revolver offense with Jon Gold:

Would you call it a gimmick?

"No. Gosh no. Gosh no - all it is is the Single-wing. It's not a gimmick. You watch teams that run it well, and it ain't no gimmick. It's 11-on-11 football. It's about what the Oregons have done to the USCs. Up until this point in time, it's 11 against 10. Defenses know to get that extra guy in the box, and everything is spun onto him and he makes all the tackle. It doesn't exist any more. That's why the teams are having so much success running this stuff. The negative is you've got to run your quarterback in it to make it an 11-on-11 game. Very few teams can have a quarterback survive the whole season. That's the quandary."

And you think Prince can run it?

"He's done it before. He said he did it before in high school. And we have to do it. If he can't do it, we have to find somebody who can. What did we finish the last two years in rushing offense? Not very good."

Gotta love Chow. He is never afraid of being frank. I wouldn't make too much out of his comment on Price.  He is basically expecting Prince to get the job done and Prince already has Chow's full confidence.

Elsewhere Jon Gold has a good story on Wade Yandall in the Daily News. The story talks about Wade's relationship with his Dad who is adjusting to life in an empty nest.  Interestingly though it sounds like Wade also got a little bit of inspiration early from an interesting source heading into his junior season:

Yandall only got his football career on track before his junior year, roughly two years ago. Yandall first tried to play the game in fourth grade, but quit on the first day because he was allergic to the conditioning. He tried again in high school, but his first two years were all but stolen by ankle injuries and a bout with meningitis. He was frustrated and sullen, but resolved to give football an honest go.

He just needed one important conversation.

"I had a talk with Rey Maualuga of USC - forgive me - and he said, `If you play, you've got to have the desire. If you don't, you should just quit," Wade Yandall said. "That set me off. I felt I had the desire and passion for the game, and I needed to play it."

Well that is nice to hear. Hopefully Maualuga will also serve as an example for Yandall on how not to carry oneself off the field. Thankfully off the field Wade has been performing like an ideal Bruin (emphasis added):

He needed to play the game for his family, all his little cousins and nieces and nephews, whose fathers had all the potential in the world to play college football, but never the grades to follow through. Yandall had the grades, now all he needed was the football.

"I had a lot of cousins who should've done this before me, but grades always came into the equation," Wade Yandall said. "That's when everybody messed up. Now, my whole family, all the kids want to go to UCLA. All my cousins - even my uncles are now pushing their kids, trying to find what their kids are interested in because of me. That's what my dad did, `Do what you gotta do, and your kids can end up like mine."'

Hope all those cousins are at the Rose Bowl today.

So goes without saying ... if you are out at the Spring game festivities today, please consider sharing stories from your day through blogging either in the Fanposts or fanshots. We always love pictures and would be great to hear your general impressions from what you saw at the game. They are always incredibly appreciates by rest of us - thousands of Bruins - outside California. Enjoy your Saturday.

GO BRUINS.