What's Bruin: Benenoch Says UCLA Offensive Line Has Something To Prove

Let's jump right in:

Football

Jack Wang previews the upcoming game against the Cardinal and explores the mental aspect of UCLA's losing streak. Along these lines, I'm ok with Mora publicly trumpeting the "every game is the same" coach-speak mantra, though, privately he should be foaming at the mouth in anger.

In another article, Wang talks about how UCLA WR Eldrige Massington hasn't yet developed the same chemistry and relationship with QB Josh Rosen that he had with ex-QB Brett Hundley. I really hope it improves as Eldrige is a big weapon for UCLA.

Chris Foster continues his "interesting" take on the English language by starting his game preview with the metaphor for Stanford's brand of football as "intellectual brutality." Maybe he is just a Misfits fanboy. Always looking for a splashy quote, Foster gets OT Caleb Bennenoch to admit that

"The offensive line has kind been the whipping boy. We kind of have a chip on our shoulder. We take that into the weight room, we take that onto the field. We got to fight to earn respect every week."

Love Caleb and hope that the OL can continue to build on their great play pre-ASU. The Staford defense is almost the opposite of ASU in the sense that they don't blitz much at all, but their DL is talented and will cause problems if the Bruins aren't focused.

Recruiting

On the football recruiting front, Scout's Brandon Huffman has some official trip visit recaps from committed players (not currently behind the paywall).

Huffman reports that stud UCLA Bruin commit DE Oluwole Betiku (5*) took an official visit to the evil Florida State and Betiku says  "wants to take all [his] visits with an open mind." Read the full article and decide for yourself how solid his commitment to UCLA is as of right now. Blue-chip LB Krys Barnes (4*) talks about how much fun he had on his visit. Finally, Huffman reports that QB Matt Lynch (3*) thought "the Rose Bowl was the thing that really jumped out to me" and that he "loves Coach Mora."

Now, there's also some bad news to report. The Washington Post says that 4* ATH Rahyme Johnson, the first commit from the 2017 class, allegedly smeared icy-hot on an opposing player's face. If this is true, this is completely deplorable and it might jeopardize his offer from UCLA.

UCLA-verse

Contrary to popular belief, there is life outside of football. Let's see what's out there.

Yawn. Another university ranking, another top performance by UCLA. I suppose the only noteworthy bit is that it is the US World News that puts UCLA in the top 10 (No. 8 in fact).

Rawr! Everyone loves Dinosaurs, so it is pretty cool that UCLA scientists discovered that some dinosaurs could elevate their body temperatures. Using Argentinean (like me!) and Mongolian eggshells, the team analyzed their chemistry to "determine the temperature at which the eggs formed" which was previously unknown. This gives insight into how active dinosaurs actually were falling somewhere in between the not-very-active cold-blooded alligator or very-active warm-blooded bird. Cool stuff.

Former UCLA student and co-founder and CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, had a Q&A at Royce Hall on Monday. Spoiler alert: his answers are a bit cliche. Yes, creating stuff that hasn't been done before is hard.

Finally, UCLA-led team of scholars helped the LA Police Department track and predict crimes using advanced mathematical algorithms not unlike the technology used in Netflix or Pandora which "led to substantially lower crime rates during a recent 21-month period." Although I study "pure" math (insert joke here), I like to see what my "applied" math brothers and sisters are doing. I must say, however, I am a bit disappointed we still don't have Robocop on patrol.

That's it for Wednesday's UCLA-verse news. Let's go kick some Cardinal stumps!

GO BRUINS!