Our Still-Too-Early UCLA Football Depth Chart Projection for the 2012 Season: Quarterbacks and Special Teams

We've come to the end of our quite possibly longest titled series of posts in quite a while here on BN: our way too early but you're never too early to spend too many hours on the internets positing about quarterbacks. Oh and special teams. (Don't worry special teams, we love you.) If you want to check out our previous posts, check out the posts on linebackers and the secondary, the guys in the trenches - the O-Line and the D-Line, and yesterday we went over the WRs and the RBs.

Today we will take a glance at the QBs and Special Teams... and guess what.

We don't have a quarterback.

If you were surprised, raise your hand. Don't lie, put your hand back down.

Depth charts this early are an exercise in futility, because so much can change between now and the summer, when practice begins. The biggest note that came out of spring practice is that Richard Brehaut, in a bid to calm all the worrywarts, has decided to concentrate solely on football and will not continue with the baseball team this spring or play summer ball.

Let's look at the QBs, their spring, and special teams after the jump.

In our preview, we noted there would be three players competing for the starting position: Richard Brehaut, Brett Hundley, and Kevin Prince. Also available for practice were Jerry Neuheisel and TJ Millweard, and Devin Fuller will be entering in the fall.

After spring practice, the depth chart for the QBs was released as follows:

Quarterback (this position listed in numerical order)
4 Kevin Prince
11 Jerry Neuheisel
12 Richard Brehaut
14 T.J. Millweard
17 Brett Hundley
18 Mike Fafaul

Yeah, we still don't know who will be the quarterback, but Mora says he will pick the QB before the first game of the season, and stick with him all season. In the scrimmage, Brehaut put up some gaudy numbers (4 TDs!!) but Hundley also had a good enough day to keep people salivating for him to start in the fall. Prince had a quiet scrimmage, but the numbers must be taken with a grain of salt, as the defense was playing as basic a defense as possible to keep the covers on their schemes.

We didn't go over Mike Fafaul in our preview to spring practice, but he is a preferred walk-on from Maryland that will probably not see any playing time this fall, but he has the right mindset in that he wants to be a true student-athlete. You can watch his highlight video here.

SPECIAL TEAMS

In our preview of our special teams unit, also known as Fair Catch U, we looked at the solid part of special teams, which is Jeff Locke and Kevin McDermott, and the not so good parts - the transfer of Kip Smith, our so-so return game, and our "fair catch or never touch the football again" punt return game.

Below is the depth chart. Everything looks to be falling into place as expected. Hopefully Locke will not be forced into kicking duties this year, as it might be too much for him.

Kicker
21 Joe Roberts

Kickoffs
18 Jeff Locke

Punter
18 Jeff Locke
42 Michael Leamy

Longsnapper
48 Kevin McDermott
(others listed numerically)
45 Peter Hajimihalis
50 Jay Weneta
53 Christopher Longo

Punt / Kickoff Return (listed in numerical order)
1 Shaq Evans
6 Jordon James
7 Ricky Marvray
19 Dalton Hilliard
25 Damien Thigpen
28 Malcolm Jones
33 Steven Manfro

We didn't project Hilliard, Marvray or Jones pre-spring, and while I'd love to see Thigpen return kickoffs or punts, I am dying to see Manfro return kickoffs. After all the hype he has received this spring, I want to see the results on the field come September. You will notice Andrew Abbott is not listed as a punt returner, and that is probably due to our thin secondary - we cannot afford to lose any more bodies.

Let us know how you want to be our QB and importantly, who should be handling punts and possibly running them back this year.

Also while we haven't seen Joe Roberts kick and he is listed as the kicker for now, Ka’imi Fairbairn is enrolling in the fall and will definitely be in the competition for the next great UCLA kicker.