Juco Reinforcement for UCLA’s Beleaguered Offensive Line: Cid Coming to Westwood

One of the biggest question marks for this upcoming football season is UCLA's offensive line. As gbruin loves repeating over and over "line wins games."  Karl Dorrell left Bruins' offensive line in shambles. Rick Neuheisel brought in one of the best OL coaches in the game - Bob Palcic - to deal with that issue in Westwood.  I will not rehash the details of Palcic's unit's struggle due to injuries and other issues in last 3 years..

We had hoped that the line would show some signs of cohesion during spring ball. In true UCLA fashion they were hit with injuries as Jeff Baca broke an ankle and Kai Maiava missed number of practices due to nagging injuries.  Bruin coaches have been on the trail looking for an offensive lineman from the JC ranks. It looks like they may have landed a quality recruit. Brandon Huffman from BruinReportOnline.com is reporting that UCLA has picked up a commitment from Citrus College offensive guard Albert Cid (confirmed by Jon Gold).

Cid is a 6-4, 320lb guard, who also had offers from Arizona and Utah. It is not clear yet whether Cid has already been cleared by UCLA admissions. Keep that in mind because admissions has always been a tricky issue with Junior College recruits. Assuming he gets cleared he could help with depth issues this Fall.

He sounds excited in his interview with Gold:

JG: What about the football program made you pick UCLA?
AC: "I want UCLA to be a winning program again. I want to be a part of that. I really like head coach Rick Neuheisel. I trust him."

JG: So tell me about yourself as a football player?
"I'm 6-3, 325 pounds. I'll pull, pass block, block a defensive tackle, a defensive player, in any way, any way I have to. One thing I like doing is blocking to the whistle. A lot of people make the block and watch the game. No, you block until the whistle. I just like to dominate people. I like the feeling when you dominate somebody and they know you're going to keep coming for four quarters and not one play."

Good thoughts there. May be Cid can contribute the same way Ryan Taylor and Eddie Williams?

Here was gbruin's analysis and depth chart before spring:

* denotes redshirt

Baca is not going to be available right away next Fall. By the way, the chart above doesn't include the name of freshmen coming in this fall. If you want to refresh your memory read gbruin's entire analysis.

If Cid can make any contribution this Fall, it might give coaches the luxury to move Sheller to tackle spot? It would be great to see Cid come into UCLA and contribute this Fall.

Welcome to Westwood Cid.