What’s Bruin: Signing Day Eve for UCLA Football

Football

A pattern has begun to emerge and Pac-12 pundits have noticed (I’m sure you have, too). Year in and year out, UCLA signs the best or near the best recruiting class in the conference, and yet...?

Jon Wilner, in his "2017 National Signing Day anti-anxiety" column, singles out Jim Mora’s Bruins for their inability to deliver the football product on the field that matches their recruiting rankings.

We’ll start the discussion with a certain team from Los Angeles that always seems to sign highly-ranked recruiting classes but can’t quite produce an on-field product to match.

Of course, I’m referring to UCLA.

Here’s how the Bruins’ 2008-16 recruiting classes have been ranked (by Rivals) within the Pac-12: 2, 2, 2, 7, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1

Pretty darn good, right? Can’t do much better, right?

But in that span the Bruins have zero conference titles, one division title and no season in which they were better than 6-3 in league play.

More harsh words from the Daily Bruin’s Hanson Wang, who isn’t buying an offensive renaissance in Westwood this season.

The key to the Bruins’ season will be how their offense, and Rosen specifically, responds to new offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch. We all saw what an abysmal offense translates to in the Pac-12: a 2-7 conference record.

But barring a massive influx of recruits Wednesday, UCLA’s offense will continue to do what it does best – stall.

Pro Football Focus spotlights areas of need for each Pac-12 program. You won’t be surprised to see which of UCLA’s position units they believe needs the most help.

After the season the Bruins relieved both their offensive coordinator and their offensive line coach in an effort to do a much better job of protecting the future high NFL draft pick Rosen. Tackle Connor McDermott was the only offensive linemen the Bruins played regularly last year who had a positive pass-blocking grade, and he will be in an NFL training camp this summer. With the Bruins appearing to be running their third offense in three seasons and losing their best pass protector to the NFL they will have their work cut out for them protecting Josh Rosen.

Men’s Basketball

From Ben Bolch in the LA Times, a week off after two consecutive losses gave the UCLA men’s basketball team some time to refocus heading into tomorrow night’s return to action against Washington State.

The Bruins presented a more united front Monday, saying two days off from practice and film after their first two-game losing streak of the season had helped refresh and refocus them.

"I think we needed mentally, more than anything, to get away from basketball a little bit and kind of reboot everything that we want to do," UCLA Coach Steve Alford said after his team dropped three spots to No. 11 in the Associated Press poll.

UCLA Freshman PG Lonzo Ball has been named as one of the ten finalists for the 2017 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award.

GO BRUINS.