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The epic season gets under way finally this week with promise and expectation fueling an excitement that hasn’t been felt in Westwood for football in 10 years!! If you can’t get up for a pre-season top 15 Bruin team that’s expected to contend for a BCS bowl game then you need to have your pulse checked. This is the season to do it!! We begin this season as we do every season, wanting our Bruins to lay wood on the field and put up some Ws. And this year is no different.

Special Season

Sure, in the past we have had low predictions for success, and our predictions for this year are not as high as where we want the program to be. But our Expectations are as high as ever. This is a once-in-10-years season with so many returning starters and so many seniors and a favorable schedule. Dorrell has the wind at his back all the way to December when we march into the Coliseum to raise hell and for a second straight year stun the nation.

We Have The Talent THIS Year

Of course, much more is riding on this season than just wins and losses for Dorrell, for Dan Guerrero, and for our football program. If we can’t do it this season, then when can we do it under Dorrell?!! That is the question that will be answered this year, Dorrell’s 5th. After all, if Dorrell expects for us to wait while we pay him nearly $1 million per year for him to have 4 straight years of top 10 recruiting classes just to make a run at a Pac-10 championship then why do we need him as a coach?? A GOOD coach wins with the talent Dorrell has NOW!! And every single expert prognosticator agrees that we have the talent THIS YEAR. The only complication expected in an otherwise great season is coaching!!

We will get into the Stanford matchup as the week progresses. And we will be getting back to our regular weekly features as well, including Stat of the Week, Vegas Line, Gameday, PostGame, Monday Morning Rant, and Guest Bloggers from well known media sources. Look for our prediction coming this week and for our continued involvement with The Bruin Show and the nations one and only college football BlogPoll. As always, you can comment on any of our posts our send us comments and your own front page posts as well and if they are good enough we will green light them. Get ready for a great season!

Go Bruins!!!

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Unbelievably bad news for freshman RB Raymond Carter. Dohn is reporting that Carter’s MRI came back positive for a torn ACL. He is out for the season and will red-shirt. Got to feel for the guy and for the team as it appeared he might see some playing time. And with Williams also out, if Markey isn’t getting it done who are we going to go to now? With Van out for the time being as well with a boot on his foot, it seems injuries are starting to pop up. Lets hope Dorrell doesn’t start looking for his excuse tag. We hope that Van and Carter get better soon. Maybe CBS Sportsline was right when they said Dorrell should have the team in shorts and shells all Training Camp … “why risk injury?” Prophetic? We hope not.

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Slow news day, and the weather is great, so a speedpost today:

• Dorrell’s Legacy - anything like say the esteemed Bill Walsh?? Obviously not, and it would be a unfair to compare Dorrell to a Hall of Famer who changed the game. But it is absolutely fair to ask if Dorrell’s coaching legacy has added to any of his mentors’ legacy (Shanahan, Neuheisel), or if Dorrell is building a legacy himself, spawning disciples of the Dorrellian Formula, whatever that is. We all know the answer to those questions. Nestor at BruinsNation has a great post on the subject.
• Site upgrade - we tried the new design, and some of you may have inadvertently seen it a month ago when we went live for a while, but the design, layout and functionality ended up having too many problems that we couldn’t spend anymore time fixing so it was a bust. We think and hope that this will be Dorrell’s last year so we might just keep this site simple as is. Who knows, we may get a flash of interest again later but we are sticking with the way things are now. It’s not like we are making money here, because we aren’t.
• Training Camp - as you all know, Training Camp opens tomorrow. There will be tons of reports from beat reporters to bloggers to site visitors so we will be bringing you some of what’s going on. Less than 4 weeks until this special season starts. All expectations are that this team can do big things. No excuses. Go Bruins!!!

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Just a quick reminder that Training Camp 2007 opens Monday. If you are planning on going make sure you make it over to Men’s Gym to catch pick up games with Kevin Love and Chase Stanback, Ben Howland’s newest stars. Here is the part of the schedule that is open to the public according to Brian Dohn, Daily News:

Monday, August 6 - 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Tuesday, August 7 - 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Wednesday, August 8 - 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Thursday, August 9 - 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Friday, August 10 - 9:45-Noon (First day of full pads)

Saturday, August 11 - 9:15-11:30 a.m. and 3:30-5:30 p.m.

Sunday, August 12 - 9:15-11:30 a.m.

Monday, August 13 - 9:00-11:15 a.m. and 3:30-5:30 p.m.

Tuesday, August 14 - 9:00 -11:15 a.m.

Wednesday, August 15 - 9:15-11:30 a.m. and 7:30-9:00 p.m.

Thursday, August 16 - 9:45-Noon

Friday, August 17 - 9:15-11:30 a.m. and 3:30-5:30 p.m.

Saturday, August 18 - 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. (Scrimmage at Drake Stadium)

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One of the traditions of Media Day is the pre-season rankings by the conference beat press. Today, the results of the rankings were released. As was pretty much expected, Dorrell’s special season is viewed by the beat press as being good for third in the conference. Nice job Karl. Way to deflate expectations! No one gives Dorrell respect, and why should they? What has he proven he can do?? Anyway, here are the rankings:

1.	USC (39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 	390
2.	California . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	323
3.	UCLA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	305
4.	Arizona State . . . . . . . . . . .	242
5.	Oregon State  . . . . . . . . . . .	237
6.	Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	226
7.	Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .	162
8.	Washington State . . . . . . .	. . . . 115
9.	Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 	98
10.	Stanford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  47

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There is this ridiculous video of Pee Wee Pop Warner football that we found for you folks. You will not believe what you are about to see. These are 8 YEAR OLDS!!! Running complex offensive sets like they are pros. The focus of the video is an 8 year old phenom by the name of Cody Paul #5 who has some awesome moves, breakaway speed and toughness. But it’s not just Cody Paul who impresses in this video, it’s the entire team. Seriously, watch the offensive plays (the entire video) and tell us that Dorrell’s WCO looks better!! We know, it’s ridiculous to be talking about little kids, but we are not talking about recruiting them. We are in awe of their cohesiveness, discipline and brilliance at running complex offensive plays. And it looks like they are having a great time. Pop warner never looked like this when we were kids. It may be too late for this season but Dorrell and Training Jay might want to check this video out and learn something.

Cody Paul

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The quest for UCLA’s first Pac-10 conference title in the dreadful Dorrell era begins Monday, August 6 at Spaulding field when Training Camp opens, UCLA announced today according to Brian Dohn of the Daily News. If not now, when? That is the question that will be answered this season. Dorrell has no excuses.

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We are interrupting our May break with a quick note on the word getting round the media: Karl Dorrell needs to produce this season. It is now part of the talking points on college football this year. ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, whom you may recall already has Dorrell on the hot seat and picks UCLA to finish no better than 3rd in the conference this year, continues his mild assault on Dorrell with this little rip:

Can UCLA finally put together a complete season under coach Karl Dorrell? The Bruins have 10 starters back both on offense and on defense. Quarterback Ben Olson is healthy and might finally live up to his lofty billing. He’ll have to if UCLA is going to improve an offense that averaged only 330 yards and 23 points per game last season. Defensively, the same team that dominated USC 13-9 and nearly won at Notre Dame also allowed 37 points to Washington State and gave up 44 to Florida State in the bowl game.

This is what we have been saying for so long … thank you Mark! At least someone at ESPN isn’t drinking Dorrell’s or Walker’s kool-aid and reports on the facts of their performance. And not to be outdone, Schlabach’s partner at ESPN, Ivan Maisel, continues to push the staff turnover story, as you may recall Maisel did back in March, with this shot:

UCLA coach Karl Dorrell made over his offensive staff — again — and coordinator Jay Norvell, late of Nebraska, has the task of turning quarterback Ben Olson into the kind of passer his press clippings say he can be. A midseason stretch of three games — at Oregon State, vs. Notre Dame, vs. California — will tell us what we want to know about Olson and the Bruins.

True dat. But ESPN college football analysts don’t stop with their talking points there. Ted Miller goes onto break down our football team with this parting shot:

Is the offensive this bad? The Bruins laid an egg most of spring and were particularly impotent during the spring game, scoring only a field goal before being placed into red-zone situations. That could be growing pains with a new coordinator or it could be [the defense].

Actually, what Ted did not refer to and perhaps didn’t know was that the 2nd defensive team was on the field against our first team offense. Miller goes on to pretty much say what we at DD have been saying for a while, Walker is gone after this season:

Walker away: Considering he transformed the personality and production of a unit in just one year, it’s fairly obvious that defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker is a hot coaching property. Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis tried to lure him away, but Walker is likely holding out for a head coaching job.

If the defense improves against college spread offenses and does what it did last year against pro offenses then Walker will have his pick of plum jobs (not UCLA where hopefully DG will finally end our ‘no experience necessary’ experiment).

It is great to see MSM outlets finally getting the story straight and the message out there often. This is not true for all outlets of course, as we witnessed not weeks ago with the moronic piece by CSTV’s resident idiot Trev Alberts, who boldly said Dorrell was doing an “incredible job.” We are looking forward to a season where it all finally comes together. The great promise of 20 returning starters, 17 of them seniors, a soft road schedule, the return of Ben Olson, and the chicken coming home to roost on the Karl Dorrell era, with all the pomp and circumstance First To 100 is going to bring to Pasadena and Westwood. Go Bruins!!

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We are getting emails wondering where we are … we are still around. We have been busy with business trips all over the States and are taking advantage of the calm before the football season to take a breather.   Still we haven’t been totally away from DD.   You will see some changes this summer to the site that we are currently working on, including a site redesign (nothing too much) and some new functionality that will allow anyone to write a post on the main page.

There have been some things happening that we would have liked to comment on, including our great 100th national championship!!  We love that the football team, like all teams, will be wearing the “First to 100″ patch all next year.  We can’t think of a better reminder to Karl Dorrell about what everyone else is achieving at UCLA that he isn’t.    There have been a few articles about football that are finally recognizing the situation Karl is in.  We will join that chorus again soon enough, and it will get louder as the Summer wears on.  So, enjoy the beginnings of Summer and look back here for non-stop coverage come June.

As always, Go Bruins!!! First to 100 baby!!!

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