Hi-larious … and you thought we were making this stuff up for kicks. We told you all year that the Arizona game was going to be this year’s version of the Monster.com bowl where the game’s losing coach would be looking for a job. In last year’s Monster.com bowl Arizona State’s Dirk Koetter lost to Dorrell and then promptly lost his job, as we scripted. In this year’s Monster.com bowl, Mike Stoops coasted his Arizona team to a victory over Dorrell and what does he get for it??!! He gets another year, according to Tom Deinhart of Sporting News:
Mike Stoops will be back at Arizona next season. That word comes from Arizona’s school president, who on Monday night ended speculation there could be a coaching change in Tucson.
We print it here, it happens there. Too funny … wait a minute. If Stoops is back next year … then … Dorrell is …
Last week we wrote a piece on how Dorrell was losing control of his program: players were openly questioning play calling, players were beginning to make “coach’s decision” their pat answer to questions, recruits were decommitting or talking to other programs, assistant coaches were talking to Dan Guerrero about their future behind Dorrell’s back, practices were unfocused and lacked effort, etc. etc. Chris Foster of the LAT today is now pushing that same theory, that Dorrell is losing his grip on the program. He starts off by quoting LB Christian Taylor:
This has stopped being about winning, in Taylor’s view. This isn’t about the Pacific 10 Conference football title anymore. It isn’t even about whether Bruins Coach Karl Dorrell is retained. “At this point, it’s just about playing football,” Taylor said.
No longer about winning … sounds like read more
There is enough blame to go around today and we will get to it, but Osaar Rasshan gets plenty of praise. He had a very good game, despite the inaccuracy issues and put our team in a position to win. Why Karl Dorrell moved him to receiver only to never use him, then not have him ready as a backup when Olson went down is beyond explanation. The young man has raw talent … but once again talent gets wasted on a Dorrell coached team. Arizona beat us soundly today, no one can argue that the defense was tired, then sat on the ball. Any decent coached team could have beaten this Arizona team with our talent. It will be interesting to see who Dorrell blames this loss on (Training Jay? … he’s got to at some point right?!) and who DeWayne Walker fingers.
What else can you say?! DeWayne Walker’s inability to read more
It took us a while to even think about Arizona … this game is about as meaningless as they come, even if we win. Remember all the hype about Notre Dame for an entire year .. then when the game rolled around no one even talked about it?! This is worse than that … it seems no reporter has ever been as uninspired to talk about a UCLA football game than this game. About the only interesting thing to watch for is which coach will be sweating more knowing that if they lose they will probably be out of a job. So, we leave off today with a shrug … no notes. We will give you Nestor’s notes at BruinsNation who covers the game today with as much enthusiasm as one can muster. We will be watching the game of course and willing our team to victory. Go Bruins!!!
This week, Vegas oddsmakers opened the betting line at UCLA - 3.5. That quickly tightened to - 1 and today many sports books have the game as a pick em. That shows how confident bettors are in Karl Dorrell to be a less than mediocre team in Arizona. Sad days indeed. Meanwhile, Ben Howland’s #2 ranked team was out last night playing a pick up game against Azusa Pacific and played like a champion. #8 Michigan State lost to Div 2 Grand Valley State in an exhibition! Anyone think that will ever happen to a Howland coached team?! Hopefully, Darren Collison’s knee injury will not be bad. Get better DC!!!
On to this week's Stat of the Week. Let's first review last week's Stat of the Week for the Wazzu game. We said there were several factors that were key to winning the game for us, yet we also chose one factor as our Stat of the Week just to keep the theme going. For all three factors we chose however UCLA failed to make the necessary standard we set for the team to win:
- Keep Wazzu pass completion to under 60%. Wazzu completed 61% of its passes.
- Better than -2 turnover margin. We had a -2 turnover margin.
- Rushing game of better than 150 yards. We had 100 yards rushing for the game.
All three factors contributed to Wazzu's ability to control the ball and move down the field, and of course, they contributed to the final score. Wazzu rushed like the best rushing team in the country. A number of things set that up, including the poor defensive scheme and apparent lack of adjustment by our brilliant DC DeWayne Walker, but the consistent passing efficiency throughout the game kept their drives going. So, we are 8 for 8 on these key Stat of the Weeks. We'd also like to point out that with the insane talk of BCS championship by players and Dorrellistas after the Cal game we noted that those manic proclamations were a key indicator that we were ready for another fall against Wazzu. And fall we did.
We have already keyed on this weeks Stat of the Week during the Bruin Show broadcast on Thursday night. We think that the key to winning this game for the Bruins is exactly the same simple key we had for the Washington game: stay close up to the half. We have no idea which team will show up to play, just like after the Utah embarrassment with the Washington game. With a healthy Markey and a much healthier Cowan, according to reports, we think this team definitely has the talent to beat Arizona. But Dorrell's teams legendary inconsistency makes any analysis of this game itself almost worthless. If this team lets Arizona jump to an early lead in the first quarter or half, then they will lose what's left of their shaken confidence and lose the game. If they come out fighting and leave the half with the game close then we will probably win it. This game is about morale and confidence, and if we have it we will win it. That's it in a nutshell.
We have called this game between our UCLA Bruins and the Arizona Wildcats this year’s version of the Monster.com Bowl - the losing coach of this game will most likely be looking for a new job at the end of the season. You may recall we picked the Arizona State game last year as the Monster.com Bowl game and the losing coach, Dirk Koetter, was indeed fired after ASU lost. Dorrell, as we know, kept his job. The epilogue to that story is the kind of epilogue we have envisioned for our Bruins - ASU hired an experienced proven winning head coach in Dennis Erickson who has taken the team to an undefeated season this year thus far and a #4 ranking!!
Mike Stoops has been absolutely read more
Are the coaches finally listening? Jim Svoboda is saying they ran the plays they intended to run regardless of the QB. If this is true, we are seeing some “growth” and “learning” by the coaches. Finally, perhaps after much criticism, Svoboda called pass plays on first downs.  He finally ran some play action. He finally took some shots downfield and at the end zone. These are all good signs. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to see Ben Olson run these plays due to the injury. So Cowen looked good running those plays.
It’s also unfortunate that we could not get anything going on the ground. Arizona shut down our rushing game, so that put pressure on the passing game to deliver. Fortunatley, we did enough. The problem remains that we are executing poorly against poor defenses. 2 touchdowns is all we had to show for our newfound offensive boldness. Check that, we weren’t exactly bold. We could have gone for it on 4th down deep in Arizona territory late in the game, but we played it safe again, playing not to lose, instead of going for the win.
So what now? What can we expect out of our team this Saturday against Oregon given what we know? We will find out what this team is made of, if they have “learned” from our esteemed coaches, and if they have “grown” after the first 5 games.Â
Oregon is one of the top offenses in the nation. Read what Nestor at Bruinsnation has to say about Oregon’s game. Although, Cal shut them down, they are still formidable.  This week DC DeWayne Walker will earn his keep and his efforts can finally be measured. He wanted the defense to shut down Arizona. They did with 220+ yards against, but Arizona were about to score a second touchdown, were it not for a mistake by their QB, to make the game close late. Not exactly an A grade against a horrible offense. So against Oregon we will see if Walker truly has transformed this defense.
The way this season plays out the rest of the way will depend highly on the outcome of the Oregon game. Win at Eugene and we at DumpDorrell.com will have to give credit to the coaching staff.  Win at Eugene and we can expect the team to rise to play anyone, and win 8 to 10 games, and even beat Southern Cal.  Lose in a close game, it may be a morale booster, but it will be tough to meet minimum expectations. Lose big, and you will see much of Bruin Nation begin to question the direction of the program, not just us. Lose big, and the Bruins will end the season horribly like every other Dorrell year. More later.
This was the last week for the Bruins to get a win while they practiced plays. We did get the win, but the game was close until the end. Without the interception return for a TD this game was going to be within a touchdown with minutes to go, and anything could have happened … against the bottom of the Pac-10 for the second week in a row.
Our offense again scored only 2 touchdowns against an average Arizona D and had to punt 6 times. Total offensive production was under 300 yards. Oregon lost today big at Cal, and that loss is going to make them hungry for a win in Eugene next Saturday. Our lackluster efforts will certainly not be enough then. 4-1, sounds good. Now we play some real teams. More later.
The story lines have been written for this afternoon’s game against Arizona. Today is a day to avenge a humiliating defeat by an inferior opponent last year. Today is our last chance to get the offense in gear against yet another average defense.  Today is our last chance to open up the playbook and take risks without too much consequence - to not be conservative and safe, and play to win, not lose. Today is the last chance to give our guys the confidence they should have in their abilities and in their team. Â
After today we won’t have the luxury of playing bad teams to cover up our “growing” and “learning” mistakes. After today we won’t have many opportunities to fail in the red zone. After today, we play good and great teams, coached by great coaches who will exploit our many weaknesses, and they will have the players and plays to accomplish just that. They will also have lots of game film on us. The game film that shows our offense still can’t handle blitzes, at all. The game film that shows we have only a few plays in our playbook in the red zone, none of which involve going for the end zone. The game film that shows our coaches don’t make good in-game adjustments, or call plays that exploit the weakness of our opponents. The game film that shows we run straight down the middle on two downs then go to the pass on third and long.Â
Today should be a shining day for our Bruins. Today, we put points on the board, starting with those mythical things called touchdowns. Today, our defense shuts down another nation’s worst offense. Today should be a blow out win. We will hear from the coaches, predictably, that all the problems we’ve had are solved, that we worked through them. That we are ready for the likes of Oregon, Notre Dame, and Cal. We should head up to Oregon with a 4-1 record, perhaps touching the top 25, with all the bravado such a record, shut-outs, and happy talk affords. We know the story … the coaches have got to go out and get it done today. Go Bruins!!
