UCLA Practice Notes: Jim Mora Regrets His "Poor Decision" Against Arizona State

UCLA practiced w/o shoulder pads to focus on "teaching." Here is Coach Mora after practice tonight (via BruinSportsReport.com):



The practice according to Mora focused more on schemes than techniques. He was unsure whether the team will keep practicing without pads heading into Saturday night's spring showcase.

Mora's goal right now appears to be to have at least 10 offensive linemen healthy so that the team could have a real scrimmage on Saturday night. He mentioned that right now he has about 9 healthy OL practicing at Spaulding. His "primary objective" at this point is the "health" of the football team and put on "a good show" for the fans on Saturday night. So Mora is doing a bit of "balancing" rest of this week.

Mora also talked about Myles Jack. He said how proud he was that Jack has about a 3.4 GPA at this point which is a big accomplishment for him given he "struggled a little bit" in high school. He also said that the coaches are not working on offensive packages for Jack this spring and probably won't during training camp (in San Bernardino). The coaches are not going to work on those kinds of special packages until game week.

Perhaps the most interesting moment of the presser (and perhaps this spring) was  when Mora started reflecting on how he used Jack against Arizona State last year. He admitted that he made a "poor decision" by exclusively starting Jack at RB against Arizona State game and keeping him out of defense. He conceded what we talked about in exhaustive detail after that painful loss: leaving Jack at RB was a big game mistake.  If Jack was used mostly as a defensive player with spot duties on offense, we'd probably win that game and get a rematch against Stanford in the Pac-12 championship game. Oh well.

But big ups to Coach Mora for at least being candid on his mistake. Now imagine the basketball coach reflecting the same way with a sense of humility on the playing time he has been giving to his son. Never mind. 

As usual the entire Mora video is worth a watch as he sounds off on number of other topics including his assessment on the latest addition to his coaching staff - Mike Tuiasosopo - who has been coaching up the LBs at Spaulding.

GO BRUINS.