Robert Kuwada from the OC Register took time away from the Hire Walker campaign to report on Rick Neuheisel from Rick's interview with a Tacoma paper:  read more

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Editor's Note:  If you haven't already voted for who you think should be our next head football coach, do so today, as we will be closing the round 2 voting later this evening.  Next round, Wednesday or Thursday, we cut to the top 5 vote getters.

Much news to report, so we'll jump right to it.  Many of you already know that Brian Dohn reported yesterday that Dan Guerrero is making candidates keep their traps shut during and after the interviewing process:

None of the football coaching candidates have made any public statement, not even to beat writers in the cities covering those teams.  Why? UCLA AD Dan Guerrero is telling the guys not to talk to the media about the search, who is interviewed, or how the interviews are going, according to sources.

Apparently DeWayne Walker didn't get the message.   Meanwhile, read more

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DeWayne Walker's press junket has hit the OC Register.  In a tempting piece titled "Search list grows for UCLA," Robert Kuwada brings out the trojan horse.   He starts the piece by naming all of the big names Dan Guerrero is interested in and quickly dispenses with each of them for a number of reasons.  Bottom line, according to Kuwada, the search has to go wider.  He covered that in basically the first 3 paragraphs.  Kuwada spends the rest of the article talking about one guy, who apparently is the reason why the search list grew:  read more

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What a riot!!!  This just keeps getting better by the day!   Well, we are in Hollywood.  According to Robert Kuwada of the OC Register, Karl Dorrell, after losing to SuC to notch his 4th .500 season in 5 years and knowing that he is about to lose his job entirely, NOW says he is ready to scrap the WCO!!  WOW.  We could not make this stuff up.  If there ever was a case study in what NOT to do as a first time head coach, Karl Dorrell would be the case.

Also, Kuwada is reporting that Dan Guerrero said after the game that he will make a decision regarding Dorrell "during the week."  Folks, if Dorrell were going to be the coach next year, WE WOULD KNOW ABOUT IT NOW.  Dorrell is gone.  It's over. read more

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Back to the lighter side of football … OC Register columnist Randy Youngman did some journalistic sleuthing and uncovered a bombshell fact about the Utah slaughter (HT to DD reader WM for the heads up):

This just in: The NCAA is investigating allegations that Belichick sent UCLA's playbook and game plan to the Utah coaching staff, before the Utes embarrassed the Bruins, 44-6, on Saturday.

At least that's what Karl Dorrell has been telling people.

Hilarious. It absolutely felt like Utah had our playbook and was reading our signs. On both sides of the ball.  Their players were everywhere on defense that we went to with the ball and everywhere on offense we weren't.  More Youngman: read more

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We have noted that during Training Camp and during the Scrimmage that the offense is not getting enough first downs. They are flaming out instead of “firing out” as Dan Guerrero likes to say. This was a big issue of course last season, when our offense was a horrible 87th best in the nation. We had an All-America kicker to hide some of the ugliness of the stalled drives, but we won’t have such a luxury this year. So when we see with our own eyes that the new Dorrell offense installed by Training Jay is stalling we start to get hives. Still, we know that with so many senior starters returning that this offense would get smoother and “make a move” as Dorrell is now fond of saying. Unfortunately, on the last day of Training Camp at Spaulding, Robert Kuwada of the OC Register reports that on 3rd down conversion drills the nightmare has not gone away:

The first offense had another dreadful period today, working in 3rd-and-long situations.

This is not good to hear. Still, Dorrell said this was the best camp he’s ever had and that team is farther along than he expected them to be. So we are taking Karl at his word and expect no excuses. Here are the results of the 3rd down conversion drills:

Play No. 1 The snap from center was low and rolled past quarterback Ben Olson.
Play No. 2 Tight end Logan Paulsen lined up incorrectly, then Olson floated a pass out to the left that was intercepted by safety Chris Horton.
Play No. 3 Cornerback Trey Brown stepped in front of an out, but missed picking off the pass. The ball popped into the air and was caught by the intended receiver, Brandon Breazell.
Play No. 4 Tailback Chris Markey was stopped for a 2-yard gain.
After the No. 2 offense ran a couple of plays, they were back at it.
Play No. 5 A pass to Breazell fell incomplete.
Play No. 6 Olson, working his way to his right, looked off an open Paulsen and threw a pass in coverage to Joe Cowan that fell incomplete.
Play No. 7 Terrence Austin was open crossing the middle of the field, but the pass was incomplete.

As the players themselves have said, No Excuses! Go Bruins!!

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Robert Kuwada, OC Register, has a sound piece on the Bruins that is realistic about the offensive line and the offense in general. Now, we want and like to hear our players and coaches talk about doing great things, about wanting to do great things. The fluff pieces that come out about how everybody cant wait for Training Camp and how everyone is so much faster due to “muscle-twitching” training we can live with if there is also truth and reality. Kuwada delivers this. As we said in our own training camp report, the OL is suspect right now, regardless of some of the fluff coming out about them. Kuwada goes deeper:

And at this point, the UCLA offensive line remains suspect. It was in struggle mode through spring practices, when working with two starters in new positions and a new line coach in Bob Connelly, their third in three seasons. And, in this camp, there have been far more losses than wins up front. But finally some things appear to be falling into place, which have allowed the Bruins’ offense to play as fast on occasion as their far more established defense.

And some of the quotes he gets from players backs up his assertions: read more

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Now that the first week of training camp is in the books and the drama of the Scott arrest came to its foreseen conclusion, it’s time to get back to discussing football. Robert Kuwada, OC Register, filed an interesting if a little disconcerting report regarding the offense:

“The UCLA offense had more than a few problems last season, converting third downs into first downs being only one. So the Bruins could not have taken much out of the end of the morning practice session on Monday, other than they still need a lot of work moving the chains.

In a situational drill, the Bruins’ No. 1 offense, with quarterback Ben Olson, was 0 for 6 turning third-down plays into first downs.
The only conversions came from the No. 2 offense against the No. 2 defense.

Last season, UCLA ranked seventh in the Pac-10 in third down conversions, making only 66 of 183 (36.1 percent) and the Bruins ended up punting away the football 63 times, the fourth most in the conference.”

Not a good sign. As we said in our Training Camp report, we think the offense is going to need time to adjust, yet again, to a new set of plays. With the 4th OC in 5 years (one who has 0 experience calling plays) and the 4th OL in 5 years (one who appears to us to not be well-liked by the players) we EXPECT the offense to have problems early on. We are less than 3 weeks away from the away game at Stanford. And although it’s only Stanford, this lack of offensive production is a concern.

Injuries, as you know are starting to rack up. Could it be that the grass field not being ready for yet another year is the problem? Hard to say. But there are too many problems already occurring with injuries. Read more about who is out here, here, here, and here. Fortunately, as Dorrell has already reiterated, we have more depth this year than in a long time … his words. No Excuses! Go Bruins!!

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