We keep getting pounded in the press. This time College Football News came out with their week 3 rankings for every team in Div 1-A. UCLA comes in at #49 … good for 8th in the Pac-10. Nice. We have yet to play all of those 7 Pac-10 teams in front of us too, including SuC, Cal, Oregon, ASU, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State. Lordy … is Dorrell in for a nightmare of a season. It pains us to even imagine, and we seriously can't, what Dorrellisms he will come up with after each loss piles up.
Not that we all need more evidence that computer rankings are faulty, but we came across incontrovertible evidence today that proves that point - the Massey Ratings for college football. There are some wacko ballots out there for rankings, as well all know, but this one pretty much beats them all. We won't post the entire rankings but here are some standouts, including our very own Bruins at #1 … but before you jump for joy check out who comes in at #8:
- 1. UCLA (2-0)
- 8. Stanford (0-1)
- 9. LA Monroe (0-2)
- 14. Notre Dame (0-2)
- 25. LSU (2-0)
- 59. Oklahoma (2-0)
- 77. Cal (2-0)
- 79. Michigan (0-2)
- 115. USC (1-0)
- 117. Louisville (2-0)
Gotta love those computer rankings. Someone should print this ranking out and frame it and send it to Karl Dorrell … cuz this is as close to the top as he will get … unfortunately.
2 games into the season, 2-0, ranked #11 in the polls, and STILL Karl Dorrell is getting no respect. We say Karl Dorrell and not UCLA because clearly if we had a Stoops, Miles, Meyer, Tressel, Carrol, Brown, Tedford, etc. etc., we would be on everyone's list to AT LEAST make the Rose Bowl if not contend for the national championship game. But Karl Dorrell has not convinced any analysts that he is among even the good coaches in the NCAA. ESPN's Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach have "tweaked their preseason outlooks" for bowl games and they have UCLA coming in 4th in the conference, behind SuC (Championship - BCS#1/#2), Cal (Rose - BCS/PX #1) and Oregon (Holiday - PX #2). Nice. They have us playing in the Brut Sun Bowl (PX #3) … do you remember where that is played?! Do you use Brut?
Even though we predicted it, how can this be? The perfect storm of a season with all the returning starters and seniors, the favorable schedule, the easy road schedule, etc. etc. … one reason … the coach. Dorrell brings down our program. The predictions aside, we are not changing our expectations for the season … conference championship and BCS bowl. Go Bruins!!!
In case you missed it, The Bruin Show radio program that had its inaugural run last night is available to listen to at any time with a click of the mouse. We had some audio problems at the start of the show that we didn’t have in our test run a week ago but they should get worked out by next week’s show. Next week there will be a lot of talk about the Stanford game so if you have take on it get on the air and let the Bruin Nation hear it.
On to the news:
- From the Shooting Fish In A Barrel department (HT to Nestor at BruinsNation): As you may know now, #5 safety Christian Ramirez, a RB in high school, was moved to tailback due to the injuries to Carter, Williams (out for career), and Moline. Dohn reports that Dorrell gave Ramirez the wrong playbook, the Fullback playbook, to study for practice giving Ramirez the impression that he is going to play FB. But when Ramirez got to practice he was put at TB. Ramirez: “I don’t know if (the coaches) were talking to me or Fred, but (the coaches) said just to learn all the fullback stuff,” Ramirez said. “So I went in there and studied all the fullback stuff, and I came out to practice and I was lined up at tailback. I was like, `OK.”
- The first Pre-Season college football BlogPoll, a poll of blog “experts” across the nation, is out. Mgoblog has all the cool details. Note that our poll ballot is in the top 5 of ballots closest to the BlogPoll overall ballot. Shows that we are locked in to the blog universe … or whatever.
- Stanford is running into injury problems as well, as Perelman LAT reports. Vegas oddsmakers have been pricing that into the line, which started at 14 and now is at 16.
- Training Camp ends today. Perelman quotes Dorrell as saying that its been a “really good camp.” Moreover, “We’ve been able to do a lot more early; we’re further ahead (than) we’ve ever been as a team; that’s a good sign.” Really good camp, been able to do a lot more, further ahead than they’ve EVER been. Great signs. No Excuses!!!
- A day after telling the media that he was making injured players and players at new positions unavailable for quotes, Dorrell flip-flops and makes the players available. Maybe the brouhaha that Dorrell caused made him reconsider. Just another oddity of the strangely unfolding season.
Here is our entry for the pre-season BlogPoll rankings. We might still change them by the time the poll comes out tomorrow. If you have any comments, suggestions, opinions, or rants let us know. Our thinking behind this poll is pretty simple: The Big East teams have easy schedules so they get more love than they should in the polls; we can't give SuC a #1 rating - it's against the laws of nature, let them earn it; We think UCLA will end up with 3 losses, 2 towards the end of the season; and the rest is pretty much dartboard material. Check it out: read more
Continuing with the pre-season rankings reports, today we bring you the Washington Post’s rankings (HT Nestor at BruinsNation). UCLA is at #11, ahead of Cal at #18 and Oregon State at #20 and behind SuC at #1. Much of the basis for WP’s ranking comes from the defensive side of the ball, and the 20 returning starters, tops in the nation. There is no discussion about the offense, but then who knows what really went into their analysis. There is something interesting in their report, a quote from Safety Chris Horton:
“You know, we’re an experienced team, offense and defense,” said safety Chris Horton, an all-American candidate. “We’re going to demand a lot of ourselves. We want others to demand a lot of us, too. We come in with high expectations. We’re not going to tolerate the small mistakes.”
Great to see this attitude coming from the players. No excuses now. No reason to lose focus. It sounds as if the players know they are ready to start playing and winning. For a full roundup of all pre-season rankings and other significant media notes for 2007 check out our summary page.
Adding to expectations we have for a very special year for Bruins football, the AP poll came out today and our Bruins are #14!! We are behind Cal #12 and SuC #1 in the Pac-10. There are no other Pac-10 teams in the top 25 pre-season poll, although Oregon, Oregon St. and Arizona St. also received votes that would put them at 29, 33, and 36 respectively. For a complete list of all the pre-season rankings and other comments significant to this season refer to this post.
Chris Dodd of CBS Sportsline is doing his season preview of the conferences. He has UCLA finishing 3rd in the the Pac-10 behind SuC and Cal. He wonders as we have that if Dorrell can’t win the conference championship this year if he ever will. Dodd also points out as some in the MSM are doing (Plaschke) that he still doesn’t know what Dorrell is all about - even now in his 5th year. Dodd:
3. UCLA: Still trying to figure out Karl Dorrell. Bruins held USC to nine, then gave up 44 to Florida State in the bowl game. If Dorrell doesn’t enter November with a chance to win the league with this crew (20 starters) he might never do it.
Oddly, Dodd has ranked our schedule tied for the 7th toughest in the nation. Check out our summary of Pre-season Rankings for more.
College Football News is putting out more analysis now that the season is closer at hand.  Here is what they had to say about Karl Dorrell:
UCLA will finish the season on the wrong side of pre-season expectations. Sure there’s plenty of returning talent, but the offense once again lacks game-breakers and Karl Dorrell still has to prove he’s a big-time coach before the Bruins can be stamped a legit top 10 team.
If you recall, CFN has UCLA ranked #11 in their pre-season poll, which is right off the top 10 so they must think something of the talent we have, if not the coach.
Blue Ribbon has to be the most bearish pollster out there on UCLA football’s prospects for the year. As we noted in our Pre-season Rankings Summary, Blue Ribbon has us coming in as low as 6th in the conference! Now we have access to their report (HT to Biggie at BruinZone) and it’s not much rosier. If hearing bad things or seeing horror flicks gives you nightmares you may not want to read further. Blue Ribbon thinks that our offense will be the weak link that will determine just how bad this season will be:
If UCLA could magically combine their 2005 offense with this defense, the Bruins would be a legitimate challenger to USC, not only in the conference but for the national title. Alas, for UCLA, this offense is in another zip code from that of 2005, and that’s not even factoring in Jones-Drew’s contributions in the return game.
We witnessed our return game live last week… it’s not that good, although Alterraun Verner has a chance to be something special. The overall message here is not pretty, expect low scoring games for our team:
It’s going to be a frustrating season from a fan’s point of view, because while UCLA is going to win some games this season, the wins might be of the ugly, 16-13, 13-6, variety. Sure, they’ll be games where Olson, if he remains healthy, hits a few long passes and the Bruins will put 25-30 points on the scoreboard, but those Saturdays will be few … If UCLA falls behind 14-0 in the first quarter against a decent defense, chances are, it is lights out.
Put the razors away. We agree with the assessment that we will have some low scoring games. Hopefully read more
