The fanshot at SBNation's Falcoholic framed Mora's comments this way:

Jimmy L. Mora Jr. Talking Up His Legendary Falcons Career
The third greatest coach the Falcons have had over the past decade is using his good year in Atlanta to recruit at UCLA, of course doing so in a respectful and artful and not at all crude fashion.

Ouch. Mike Florio of NBC's Pro Football Talk blog (perhaps the most influential NFL blog) read in that industry made the following observation:

It's the latest example of Mora's ability to be blunt and brutally honest. In fact, if he didn't possess that blessing/curse, he'd possibly still be coaching the Falcons. After all, it was a shockingly candid radio interview regarding his desire to return to the Seattle area - and his willingness to dump the Falcons if an opportunity arose at the University of Washington - that contributed to his dismissal.

The comments in reaction to Florio's posts are not pretty. I will share three after the jump:

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Last week we were talking about Ben Howland team making a season-saving run in our remaining regular season games to somehow get into the Big Dance. The closing stretch on paper at least was set up favorably for UCLA. Bruins theoretically could finish up the regular season with a 7-1 or 8-0 record, and then somehow sneak into the Big Dance by winning at least 2 games in the Pac-12 tournament. DC Bruins had laid out the blueprint noting how the Bruins could have positioned themselves for a run in the tournament by finishing in the top-4 of the conference.

Well after getting drubbed by a very well coached Cal team at home, those scenarios are not looking so hot for the Bruins. Think about it for a moment. In perhaps the worst Pac-12 conference in last 30 years, Bruins may not finish even in the top-4. Perhaps the Bruins can still manage to put together a 6-0 finish to the regular season, but at this point winning a game against Arizona at Tucson looks to be a long shot. On top of that it is hard to imagine a realistic scenario of Bruins getting into the Dance by winning 4 games in 4 days during the Pac-12 tournament. A program like UCLA should never be in that situation.

Yet that is the situation we are in. It looks more than likely UCLA is set to miss the Big Dance for the second time in three years under Howland. This will of course be the third time under Howland's career Bruins will find themselves without a dance ticket. But we have always given him a mulligan for his first miss attributing it the preceding dysfunctional and incompetent regime.

This brings us couple of issues - a short term one and a long term one - pertaining to UCLA basketball. Let's get to them after jump.

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Bruins got off to a decent start in our final stretch of the season by taking care of the Trees on the Thursday night. With the victory against Stanford UCLA has now put together a nice little 10 game winning streak at our "home" away from home. Still the winning streak has come at the expense of some really bad to average teams. Well this afternoon the Bruins will have an opportunity to make a statement against perhaps the only decent (somewhat) program in the Pac-12 conference.

The Bears are not in the top-25 but under Coach Mike Montgomery they are getting the best out of the talent available in their roster. If the Bruins can hold serve against them this afternoon, it should give us another boost with 6 games left in the regular season. You can check out the BN game notes here. The official UCLA preview is here and game tracker is here. The tip off is scheduled for 1:07 PM (PST) on FSN/PT.

With that let's get the show started. This is your open game thread. Fire away.

GO BRUINS.

Let's go over some quick game day notes before we get set for the tip off the "biggest test of the season." The tip-off is scheduled for 1:07 pm PST (FSN and Prime Ticket). It is worth repeating that this is very much a must-win game if the Bruins want to hold on to any hope of salvaging this underachieving season and get into the dance. If you are looking to do a quick read through the news highlights this am, here are the key bullets:

Bruins health - looking good: Bruins are relatively healthy heading into today's matchup. Travis Wear, who missed the Wazzu game with a high ankle sprain, played 28 minutes in the Trees and "felt all right." [LA Times].

Eye on (bad) free throw shooting: If the Bruins want to pull out a win this afternoon, they will have to get the job at the free throw line. They have been atrocious to date, going only 65.2% during Pac-12 play. Our guys went 10 for 15 in a two-point loss to Washington and 10 for 21 in a seven-point loss to Oregon. Something to keep an eye on what could be a close game at the Sports Arena this afternoon. [LA Times].

More after the jump.

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Well we have talked about it. If Ben Howland's Bruins want to mount a last ditch effort to save a pathetic season by getting into the tournament, they need to run the table. We should have a genuine shot at closing strong as we start with the soft part of our schedule tonight. Bruins can start a late season run by taking care of business against Stanford. As mentioned by DCBruins the Trees have been tanking in the Pac-12 after a nice start.

The Trees' preview is here. The official UCLA preview is here and game tracker is here. The tip off is scheduled for 8:07 PM (PT). The game will be broadcast on Prime Ticket with Joel Meyers doing play-by-lay, Don MacLean doing color and Courtney Jones reporting from the sideline.

With that let's get the show started. This is your open game thread. Fire away.

GO BRUINS.

To no one's surprise Dan Guerrero jumped on the opportunity to play up Coach Jim Mora's recruiting success even though he personally had nothing to do with it. He led his lame "blog" talking up Mora's recruiting success even though he has no clue about the details of our football program. Remember this is the same guy who has never been seen around Spaulding Field and literally has no clue about "what's wrong with Spaulding."

The clumsy, tone deaf, predictable, Baghdad-Bobesque PR play from Guerrero's lackeys is not surprising to us. We knew it was coming. What is worth taking note of is the cynically craven attempt by UCLA athletic department to fleece Bruin fans by appealing to their (once again) optimistic vibes around the football program. Here are Dan's words urging UCLA fans to buy football tickets for this coming season (emphasis added):

Football season ticket holders should have received by now your 2012 renewal information, complete with a video message from Coach Mora. Upon reviewing the email and renewal form, you may have noticed that the season ticket package is slightly higher in price than it was in 2011.

Let me assure all of you that those prices are a one-year anomaly, brought on by a rare confluence of events: namely a seven-game home schedule (there were only six home contests in 2011) and hosting marquee games against both USC (which has the same base ticket price as last year) and Nebraska. Keeping this in mind, we made sure that single game prices for five of the seven home games remained at their same levels from a year ago.

I hope this gives you better insight on how we set the pricing this year. What's very important to keep in mind is that Coach Mora and the team need your support more than ever in their quest to get us back to relevance on the national scene. This home football schedule is one of the most competitive we've had in years. Along with big games against national power Nebraska and our crosstown rival USC, it also includes match-ups with three bowl teams in Houston, Utah and Stanford.

There are so many issues with these grafs, I don't know where to begin. I will start with the note on Dan calling "seven-game home schedule" a "one-year anomaly." That is another data point that confirms our assertions that neither Dan nor any of his cronies in the department has any clue about strategic scheduling that'd put UCLA to make runs at big season every year. If Dan and his staff had any idea about intelligent scheduling in modern CFB landscape, they wouldn't make excuses for next year's schedule as an anomaly.

There is another huge issue that becomes apparent from Dan's words. They indicate that his athletic department has no clue how to leverage fans' excitement around the program into generating big crowds, as they only know how to go for short term dollars with no grasp of long term interest of the program. Let's get to it after the jump.

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Last November news came out that Dan Guerrero against UCLA's best interests scheduled a "neutral" site game against Texas in Dallas. We discussed why that game was a classic case of dumb scheduling here and here. So we are not going to repeat those same discussions again. However, it appears it is just not us here at BN, who thinks this kind of scheduling is ridiculous.

Bryan Fischer notes on CBS that Pac-12 will no longer permit non-conference "neutral site" football games "unless the conference gets their cut of the media rights":

No member institution shall enter into an agreement to play a neutral-site football game (except in circumstances where such neutral-site game is the away leg of a home-and-home series) unless such agreement provides the Conference with the exclusive broadcast rights and digital rights in all media, and copyright to such neutral-site game.

In other words in the future Pac-12 will not allow incompetent administrators like Chianti to schedule "neutral" site games against Texas in Dallas, unless the Longhorns also agree to come out to LA. It is too bad that this rule was not in place last year.

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From all accounts UCLA's 2011-12 basketball season has turned out to be a huge disappointment to date. At a pathetic record of 13-10 (6-5) Bruins are well off the expectations of winning the Pac-12 conference. They have completely failed to build on last season - which at the time barely met expectations by getting into the tourney and bowing out in first weekend of the tournament.

Howland himself raised the white flag on this regular season few weeks ago, making it all about the Pac-12 tournament. Still looking at our schedule I still think the Bruins may have a shot in somewhat salvaging a hugely disappointing season (turning Howland all but a lame duck coach in the eyes of many in our fan base) by running the table for rest of this year.

Yes, it is reasonable for UCLA fans to expect Howland and this team to run the table rest of this season if they care about saving face this season. Missing the tournament 2 out of 3 years will simply be unacceptable result in Westwood. So if the guys want to sense the urgency and make a run for the Big Dance they can do it by tearing through what has shaped up to be the soft part of their season schedule.

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Well that was fun. Let's wrap up what has been an incredibly successful recruiting effort by Mora and his new staff at UCLA with some quick thoughts and data points.

When Mora took over the UCLA program our expectation was for him to finish out UCLA's recruiting class in this transition year with a strong effort, addressing critical needs at QBs, WRs, and DBs. Needless to say Mora has blown past all of our expectations with what turned out to be a great finish in the last few days and with a strong closing performance on signing day. As of right now, UCLA's class is ranked number 11 on Scout.com, no. 12 on Rivals.com and no. 19 on ESPN.com.

It is worth mentioning that Rick Neuheisel also had a good signing day in his first one as a UCLA coach. However, that effort was different than this one as Neuheisel held on to a class that was put together by Karl Dorrell's staff, spearheaded by Dewayne Walker as the Bruins were a year removed from 13-9. What makes Mora's success in last few weeks remarkable is that he essentially transformed the recruiting class Neuheisel left behind this past season by flipping recruits from other schools, who would have been interested in UCLA but became lukewarm due to our on field issues from last 2 seasons. Mora strategically built his staff by bringing in fierce, ace recruiters right away and also taking advantage of relationships built through his coaching network. Many of us had concerns about Mora's ability to recruit when his name came up. He has at least addressed that specific issue by knocking it out of the park.

Bruins have stocked up this class with solid prospects at DB, WR and with number of elite prospects highlighted by Ellis McCarthy and Devin Fuller. We will have lot more thoughts on the first recruiting class of Coach Jim Mora in the coming days. I will share some quick bullets from the official site after the jump.

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Let's do a fresh thread as the Javon Williams one is getting packed with comments. Here are the recruiting targets who have yet to announce:

• Aziz Shittu, (Stanford, Cal, UCLA, Southern Cal) [2 pm PST]
• Bryce Treggs, (Cal, UCLA, Southern Cal) [3 to 5 pm PST,on FoxSportsWest.com]
• Randall Goforth, (Arizona St., UCLA, Washington) [3 to 5 pm PST,on FoxSportsWest.com]
• Bryan Harper, (Arizona, Cal, UCLA, Oregon, Washington) [3 to 5 pm PST,on FoxSportsWest.com]

Reportedly Seth Jacob is off the board and Tairen Owens is "exploring options". The Owens news is not a surprise to us based on what we had heard in recent days. As for the remaining guys except for Goforth - others are long shots. I don't really believe Treggs is still deciding. I think he is all set on Cal. It will be a monumental shocker if he comes to UCLA. I wouldn't recommend anyone holding their breath for Treggs.Doesn't really matter though as today already has been a massive success for Mora and UCLA.

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Looks like Coach Jim Mora may be in position to pull in the first big shocker (in a good way for the Bruins) by landing 4 star WR receiver from Oaks Christian - Jordan Payton. Sean Ceglinsky from ESPN first tweeted:

Word is Jordan Payton from Westlake Village (Ca.) Oaks Chrisitian will sign with #UCLA. That's right, #Washington no longer an option.

And Brandon Huffman just confirmed the news a little while ago. If this holds up, this will be a huge coup for the Bruins on signing day with few more targets on board.

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The fun is going to happen on the mainpage. Meanwhile, consider this is a special bonus open thread for National Signing Day (NSD) where we will time to time share cool tweets coming from current UCLA players and the latest signees.

Like this one from Brett Hundley Jr:

S/O to All the New Bruin Commits Let's do the Unthinkable and Be Great! It's about that time, Get Ready...We Comin #BruinNation

Or from Dietrich Riley:

This day brings back memories. February 3, 2010 I made the best decision with my family beside me on ESPN. God has blessed me. #UCLA

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Just in case folks forgot - today is the birthday of Jackie Robinson:

Jackie Robinson, who would have been 93 today, once said that "a life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives," Jackie Robinson said. By that measure, his own life was monumental.

In becoming the first African American to play Major League Baseball, he challenged racist assumptions about black inferiority and the logic for segregating the nation's pasttime.

After he walked away from the diamond - he won the National League MVP in 1949, and is considered one of the greatest second basemen ever - Robinson continued to be a pioneer. He was the first black commentator for a national sports broadcast, and the first black vice president of a major American firm.

Jackie is arguably the greatest athlete of all time representing those magical four letters:

Jack Roosevelt Robinson came to UCLA in 1939 and although he only stayed in Westwood for two years, he left behind one of the most powerful and proud legacies in UCLA's storied history. And soon, "Jackie" Robinson would change the world as well.

In his time at UCLA, the young man from Cairo, Georgia, won a national championship in track and field, two consecutive conference scoring titles as a basketball player, was an honorable mention All-American in football and played a little baseball, where he was so-so.

Well, he turned a little better than "so so" in baseball. Going back to football, Jackie made "an immediate impact on the '39 Bruin football team, averaging 12 yards per carry and 20 per punt return to lead the nation." You can read more about Jackie's UCLA legacy here and here.

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It's time for another 8 CLAP. Jim Mora's recruiting freight train picked up even more momentum this Monday afternoon when the Bruins received a commitment from a highly coveted Simon Goines from Keller, Texas. Scout.com had the story first. It's confirmed here with the following comment from ESPN's Greg Biggins:

"It was the environment, the coaches and the campus, I just fit in really well there," TX OL Simon Goines on why he's headed to #UCLA

The "mammoth tackle prospect" (as described by Biggins)listed at 6-8, 295 on Scout.com committed to Bruin blue and gold in a closely watched national recruiting battle between UCLA and Missouri. Earlier today Missouri received a commitment from one of the most sought after recruit in the country - WR Dorial Green-Beckham from Springfield, Missouri. DGB's decision seemed to have no impact on Goines.

While Goines is listed a 3 star prospect on Scout.com and Rivals.com, don't be fooled. The kid had offers from over 15 D-1 programs including schools such as Arkansas, West Virginia, Baylor and Mississippi State. What is also interesting is that Goines was also recruited to play hoops by couple of mid major programs such as Western Kentucky and New Hampshire. Missouri apparently also talked to him about potentially playing in its hoops program when he reportedly committed to the Tigers last summer.

At 6-8, 295 Goines may have a good chance to get up to 310/320 range in college. It is kind of fun to think about his upside in Sal Alosi's regimen at UCLA. There seems to be a lot of upside around this kid, which is evident in the boatload of offers from some pretty solid programs.

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Let's start what is shaping up to be a pretty great week with a quick reset for the National Signing Day. Right now UCLA has 26 recruits committed for the class of 2012. Bruins as of this morning are ranked number 8 on Scout.com and number 12 on Rivals.com. With 2 days left till signing day Bruins are going to be on holding pattern for few more blue chip recruits. I will share this blurb from SBNation's UCLA capsule on our remaining targets (prepared by none other than BN's AHMB):

Moving forward, UCLA has a legitimate shot at a number of highly ranked prospects. Most notably, five-star safety Shaq Thompson and five-star WR Bryce Treggs are both looking at UCLA following Tosh Lupoi's exit from California, as are other former California commits four-star receiver Jordan Payton, four-star defensive tackle Aziz Shittu, and to a lesser extent, five-star lineman Arik Armstead. Others currently in the mix are four-star linebacker Seth Jacobs, four-star WR Kodi Whitfield, four-star quarterback Devin Fuller, three-star receiver/cornerback Randall Goforth, three-star offensive tackle Simon Goines, three-star athlete Kenny Walker, three-star linebacker Jeremy Allison and three-star receiver Javon Williams. Signing day will be hectic in Westwood, and the Bruins faithful are definitely anxious to see how it plays out.

Armstead is off the board (Oregon). Whitfield also shore up his commitment to Stanford (which is not a surprise). None of that should put a damper on UCLA's recruiting as we got amazing news yesterday when Fuller decided to jump on the growing Bruin bandwagon. If you have not seen it yet, you can check out the video of Fuller's commitment here and also a YouTube "movie" of Fuller's senior year highlights at the Old Tappan HS in New Jersey. Here were Fuller's quotes published in local NJ.com:

"I just like everything about UCLA. I'm excited about working with coach Mora in that offense. It makes it a lot easier when my family is out there, too."

It seems quite likely that the talented Fuller, who ran and passed for more than 10,000 yards and 100 touchdowns in four years at the Bergen County school, will be a good fit, just as he figured to be at any of his final five options.

I think it is worth noting what a big deal Fuller's commitment to UCLA really is. With Fuller's commitment UCLA for the second straight year will have an elite athlete coming in to play QB. Not to mention with Brett Hundley and T. J. Millweard, Bruins now have some solid pieces to work with to build out viable depth at this position for the first time in years.

We will see if Fuller ends up playing QB at UCLA but either way Mora adds an elite athlete in our roster, who will hopefully be put in position to contribute at other skill position such as WR as well. Either way Fuller is a fantastic get for UCLA, who gives us yet another reason to be excited about upcoming signing day.

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