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UCLA Football Round Up - Retirements, Spaulding Field Update,

By freesia39
This is the only picture I could find of Alex Mascarenas, and the blurriness fits as Mascarenas is retiring from the UCLA football program.
This is the only picture I could find of Alex Mascarenas, and the blurriness fits as Mascarenas is retiring from the UCLA football program.

We may be in the middle of UCLA Baseball Super Regionals Fever, but football still moves on. News came out yesterday about three additional players leaving the program (h/t to GrampaBruin.)

Alex Mascarenas and Wade Yandall will both medically retiring, both due to concussions. Jared Koster has decided to transfer. It's a shame for Mascarenas, as I really enjoyed watching him play last season. He was projected third on the depth chart at FS, but we should be fine overall at the position. Losing Yandall however, could be a problem - he was projected as the starter at LG. However, he only started three games last season, while also playing on special teams, so we are not losing a lot of experience. Koster was projected to be the backup to Patrick Larimore but has not played in a game as of yet.

By the way, remember the scandale du jour that we were over by several scholarships? Three more were just freed up. Attrition naturally happens. If we were, at last count, for scholarships over, then we are now only one over.

Spaulding Field is still... Spaulding Field. (h/t again to GrampaBruin, posting machine.) We were told that Spaulding would be renovated, to prevent the rash of player injuries and to upgrade our sub-par practice field, but guess what:

I walked by Spaulding Field a few hours ago and there were no trucks, no new turf and no construction going on. With UCLA fall camp set to begin in a few weeks here, it looks like the field renovations won't begin until after the season.

I guess the bidding process was a bit complicated and it won't be done until after the season, as we were semi-warned about this at a Meet Jim Mora event.

In recruiting news, Su'a Cravens, a 4 star/5 star safety and one of the top players in the class of 2013 in California, committed to that other school yesterday. (third h/t to GrampaBruin) NCAA sanctions, be damned. Now that he is off the board, Mora can concentrate on some of the other secondary talent out there in the Southland, while also trying to convince Cravens that UCLA is a much better place to be.

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