From Mora’s Twitter/YouTube Q&As: UCLA Going Digital with iPads, the Pistol, Pass Defense Issues & Other Notes

As I noted in my yesterday's post-practice roundup and number you have done in the fanshots, Jim Mora used his Twitter account to directly engage the UCLA fanbase by answering a number of their questions via YouTube. We have seen this kind method of mass engagement in other industry but in the world of college football, I think it's one of the first times we had a coach effectively sync up two social media platforms to engage in his school's fanbase.

Credit here goes to Mora and his staff because it's reasonable to assume that this was a result of Mora's own initiative without much inspiration or support from lazy, visionless and incompetent athletic director.

As for the Q&A David Woods from BruinReportOnline.com already did the hard work of compiling all the YouTube links in one place. As mentioned above some of you have already shared few of them in the fanshots. Few of the videos are worth mentioning on their own because they are newsworthy.

First, Mora mentioned that the football program is going "green." The program has bought 130 iPads and I am assuming this means UCLA is going digital with its playbooks.

Response to @UCLACompStore (via 8ClapProductions)

Stanford was the first program to go digital with playbooks last season. IIRC we took note of that here on BN and were pretty envious of that. It's very cool to see Mora announce that on YouTube.

Second, I thought Mora's response to a fan's question about whether UCLA runs the pistol was kind of amusing:

Response to @theRealMozzi (via 8ClapProductions)

Mora said point blank that "we don't run the pistol" and that UCLA never ran the pistol last year. I think that's right now. But as Mora noted with Noel Mazzone as our OC Bruins have run the zone read that to an untrained eye sometimes could appear to be another version of the pistol formation (remember the pistol was never an offense but a formation).

While I think it was not smart for Rick Neuheisel to go with the pistol as the base set (and often times the only set) of his conservative, vanilla and predictable offense at UCLA, I wouldn't mind UCLA to run the pistol formation every now and then. The Niners incorporated it into their offense pretty effective when Colin Kaepernick took over at QB. It kept the opposing Ds off balanced.

Anyway, we will see what happens next year. As improved as our offense looked last year, we had our issues in the red zone, and I wouldn't mind throwing in a little wrinkle here and there, and also having at least an option for a downhill power-running game (perhaps if Malcolm Jones can get it going next year UCLA can have him as an option to complement and speed of other backs in our roster).

Moving on, Mora's responses to a question about our weak passing defense from last year was interesting:

Response to Brian Stanley (via 8ClapProductions)

Specifically Mora talk about how passing defense statistics can be misleading. He suggested that Bruins gave up lot of "empty yards" last season because they were scoring more points and the team was ahead, thus giving up lot of "empty yards." That could be true but as he acknowledged that didn't explain the issues we had against Baylor, Cal and Oregon State.

I liked his explanation about how ultimately the success of the secondary depends on the synchronicity between the rush generated by our front-7 and the coverage from our backs, and a key factor in that has to do with the depth our backers are providing in coverage. I think the key this year could be the effectiveness of our hybrid backers like Taylor Legace, Kenny Orjoke etc, who hopefully can replicate the effectiveness of guys like Dalton Hilliard and Stan McKay from last year.

We already knew this but just to make official, Mora announced that we are "absolutely" going back to San Bernardino for pre-season camp this August and that he "can't wait to recreate the experience" UCLA had last year:

Response to Dave Cadena (via 8ClapProductions)

Lastly, I will end with my favorite comment from the Q&A. Mora made it clear that he and coaches "cannot use youth as an excuse" this upcoming year:

Response to @BruinMD (via 8ClapProductions)

Cannot agree more.

GO BRUINS.