This Saturday's game against SuC puts it all on the line. All you will hear about this week is the rivalry game having the Pac-10 title and Rose Bowl on the line. This is what we wanted right?! A chance to win the title and go to the Rose Bowl. But in this strange college football season the same game could also take us out of a bowl game altogether. At 6-6, meaning we lose to SuC, we are not guaranteed a bowl invitation. There could be 5 teams with 7 wins in the conference and Arizona could also be 6-6. That would mean the 6th Pac-10 bowl could chose Arizona over us for the final bowl slot.
It's fitting that Dorrell's potential final game is that manic. Its all or nothing proposition mimics the inconsistent play of the team during his entire tenure. Dan Guerrero had the chance to end the mania after the Oregon win and state that Dorrell will be here next year, but chose not to. So here we are, all or nothing. If Dorrell manages to win he should still be let go, because as Guerrero would say his body of work demands he be fired. The damage he has done to the program will certainly carry over to next year, when every game will carry the story line of Dorrell on the hot seat. Given that it will be a rebuilding year, that talk will get more heated as the season wears on … just like this year. But it's not a lock that DG will dump Dorrell. So, it is plausible that if Dorrell wins and goes to the Rose Bowl that he will get his job back. So our goal of dumping Dorrell is also on the line, all or nothing.
But the story line you are going to hear all week, because it sells, is the "title on the line" story pushed by the local media. Thankfully, due to Dorrell's ineptness, we only have to hear it for a few days. Go Bruins!!
Looks like the team is ready to play, Cowan is ready to play, the team talked about Utah and not letting an easy one get away from them, they had an excellent practice, and they play a team near dead last in every defensive category. This obviously sounds a lot like Notre Dame and Utah, but we really do expect a victory. Wazzu is awful in nearly every single offensive and defensive category. Where they shine is passing offense. Wazzu can't run at all so look for a full-time passing game. That is all we need to focus on defensively to win. Wazzu's defense allows 35 points per game and is near dead last in rush defense. All we have to do is run the ball mostly, hold onto it, drain the clock, and that will get the job done on offense. We fully expect a win, and the obligatory Dorrellian mania afterwards.
So lets get to some notes: read more
We finally have our chance at making things right with the Irish. Payback, redemption, revenge, some score to settle … whatever you want to call it … we got to do it. Last year, as you all remember, we coughed one up to Notre Dame in South Bend in the final moments in embarrassing fashion (snatching defeat from the jaws of victory), giving Brady Quinn several million dollars extra per year to play with. And how can we ever forget Karl Dorrell thanking Notre Dame for the loss.
We still don't have any desire to break down the opponent or the game. We can't summon up the interest … Karl Dorrell has ruined it for us this year. He needs to beat some real teams to get us interested enough to look deeply at matchups. So we'll bring you some notes. You know already that Notre Dame has set a record for futility in starting out 0-5 for the first time ever in their long and storied history. What you may not know is that Notre Dame can match their worst losing streak in their history at 8 games with a loss to us on Saturday. In 1960 they started out 2-0 then ended the season on an 0-8 streak. Given the place football has in Notre Dame history that would be a monumentally bad achievement to match. And they play top 10 ranked Boston College and top ranked SuC in their following 2 games. They need this win or their record losing streak will go to 10 games. Their backs are against the wall and we cannot come out playing the way we have every single game this year so far and expect to walk away with a win.
Another interesting note comes from poster KernBruin on bruinzone: read more
Looks like Sunshine Reports, as one Bruinzone poster put it, are coming from Dorrell now too. Here is what Dorrell had to say about this week's practices, Rich Perelman LA Times reporting:
UCLA head coach Karl Dorrell was pleased with Wednesday’s spirited and intense practice, which included almost an hour of work accompanied by very loud crowd noise.
"I thought the offense looked sharp," he said. "I thought Ben [Olson] looked sharp, he operated pretty well with all of our game-planning things. I like what we’re doing right now."
There you have it. It's not exactly Dorrell "adding himself" to the coaching units this week but it's worth noting he thinks the players are looking "sharp." We can pretty much expect a focused and strong effort from the team this Saturday. No letdown from the emotion charged bounce back win over Washington. All we need now is a little "added" Dorrell and we should be a lock to win at Corvalis. And Dorrell doesn't leave any presser lately without doling out a choice Dorrellism or two. This time its a mini-Dorrellism … "game-planning things." You know, those game-planning thingys … Ben is good with them thingys. Nice.
This week we travel to Corvallis and take on an Oregon State team (2-2, 0-1) that put up a fight against Arizona State last week, beat Utah handily in their opener 24-7, and got blown out by a surprising top 25 Cincinnati away, 34-3. Our game against Oregon State last year was memorable for a number of reasons not pertaining to the actual game. You might recall that OSU was our turn-around game, the infamous "new season" game. To stop the 4 game losing streak we had going at the time, Dorrell used the creative technique of wiping out the entire season, 4-5 at the time, to focus on "going undefeated" the rest of the way. Too bad the NCAA did not comply and wipe out the rest of our record.
The week of the OSU game was also the week of the infamous Karl Dorrell "The Thinker" piece put out by the LA Times and Morgan Center to counter growing criticism of Dorrell's performance. Nothing like a little fluff in the midst of a 4 game losing streak to appease the masses. Look for the same type of fluff once Dorrell loses some conference games.
The OSU game was also interesting for read more
Before the season started we at DD had marked our home game against Washington as this year's 1st of 2 Monster.com bowl games - where the losing coach would most likely be looking for a job at the end of the season. We predicted the loser of last year's Monster.com bowl game, between our Bruins and Arizona State led by then head coach Dirk Koetter, would get the boot. Sure enough, Dirk Koetter lost that game and then promptly was fired 2 weeks later. With Ty Willingham coming up with incredibly bad seasons at proud Washington, ending last in the conference and second-to-last in the conference in his 2 seasons, we noticed that that faithful were losing their patience.
But Willingham has come out firing this season with a road win against a seeking-new-head-coach Syracuse and a home win against darling mid-major Boise State. Last week he even had his team close at the end of the first half (down 3-7) at home against highly ranked Ohio State, until the Buckeyes outscored his dogs 30-7 in a runaway in the second half. Ty has won a bit of a reprieve … so this is not setting up to be the Monster.com bowl we thought it would be. However, read more
Unlike last year after the poor showing against Rice, this year after the poor against BYU we have an incredibly easy game at Utah to get things working again. We say easy because Utah has stumbled onto what is going to be one of its worst seasons ever. They lost all their key players on offense to injury and that offense, ranked near dead last in the country (107), has gotten in the red zone all of 1 time in 2 games. Their defense is not much better, allowing a nearly 300 yards per game (287) on the ground for near dead last in the country (113). Their passing defense is ranked #4 simply because it's so easy to rush against them. Only 44 passes were thrown against Utah in its first 2 games. In terms of total defense, Utah is ranked #71 in the country.
Think Stanford LAST year. After the Rice game last year, we had to travel to Seattle to play Washington, a bad Washington team but not nearly as bad as Utah. We lost that game in Seattle and that started the losing. We will blow Utah out Saturday, even if it is on the road … so if there will be losing this year it won't start this week. Next week, however, we get to avenge that Washington loss at home against an improved Husky team that is making headlines.
On to the news:
- Our own defense has some work to do. We are ranked #83 in the country in total defense read more
BYU, fresh off a second straight convincing Pac-10 victory, is coming to the Rose Bowl Saturday. The first game of UCLA's tour of Utah college football programs, BYU is looking to make a move in this new mid-conference BCS era. Unfortunately, they are running into a loaded Bruin team that has a hard time losing at home. Dorrell and co. should make this an easy game going away for the win.
But BYU will be a step up in competition in comparison to Stanford. And Dorrell is doing his best Lou Holtz impression to dampen expectations, per Chris Foster, LA Times: read more
It’s raining today in San Francisco, site of the Emerald Bowl tomorrow between UCLA and Florida State. Rain is in the forecast overnight and tomorrow morning as well, according to weather.com. The field at AT&T Park where the game will be played is a blend of 5 low-growing bluegrass hybrid turf grasses, according to their website. We don’t know much about turf grass, but low-growing and rain may not be a good mix. After a day and a half of steady rains, and wind, it might make for a tough day on the field. It will still be windy tomorrow night for the game as well, windy and cold.
Which team would that affect more, UCLA or Florida State?? Let’s take a look. Both teams have speed read more
We are a week away and so now we begin looking at the matchup for the glorious Emerald Bowl. It’s great for schools to play in bowls - they can earn some revenues for the program and get some positive publicity. It also allows schools to give the alumni in other parts of the country a reason to reignite their relationship to the school, warming them up for gifting down the line. 32 bowl games this year in Div 1A … compared to 18 bowl games in the ’80s. Have bowl games become watered down?? Not according to the marketing … excuse us … athletic departments of Florida State and UCLA (sarcasm off).
Florida State is a national powerhouse led by a legend of a coach in Bobby Bowden, the winningest coach in college football, or something like that. UCLA is a national powerhouse as well, regaining our national prestige with a stunning upset win over highly ranked Southern Cal. The reality is a little more read more
