SB Nation User Blog: bruinmike88

5-star QB Craft commits!

bruinmike88 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:47:32 -0000

Bumped from the diaries. GO BRUINS. -N

5-star JuCo QB Kevin Craft from Mt. San Antonio College has committed to UCLA!

Based on his profile, his two other top schools were SMU and Hawaii meaning he was a June Jones lock, but Coach Neuheisel and Coach Chow have sprung a big surprise here and locked up a kid who seems to have all the tools to be an elite QB. This is absolutely incredible and I can guarantee it would have never happened without the presence of those two men! Man we're going to be stacked at QB next year with Olson, Cowan, Craft, Crissman, and Forcier, I can't wait. I would imagine Crissman is probably gonna redshirt now, but the one guy I worry about is C-Force. He probably won't get a meaningful snap until his junior year now, with Olson/Cowan in the saddle next year and Craft probably jumping in the year after that in his own senior year. Should be fascinating to see how this all shakes out, our passing offense should be something to behold with this much QB talent if our OL does its job.

GO BRUINS!

UPDATE: Not bad at all. Craft happens to JC Player of the Year. From a story that a ran in the San Bernardino County Sun:

The sophomore threw up impressive numbers last fall. He completed just over 60 percent of his passes while throwing for 4,231 yards and 44 touchdowns. He led an offense that averaged more than 40 points per game and advanced to the CCCAA championship game, in which it lost to City College of San Francisco.

UCLA, meanwhile, had injury problems at the quarterback position, with Ben Olson and Pat Cowan missing large chunks of playing time. UCLA finished just 6-7 last season.

Both players will be back next season, but adding Craft would give Neuheisel and Chow plenty of solid options.

"They just know they might need some help, either now or down the road," Gastrab said of UCLA. "The fact that Kevin was Player of the Year in junior college, he could help them right away. He's a great fit for them." Keep them coming CRN. GO BRUINS. -N

UPDATE II: They come, they go. As noted in the comments, McLeod Bethel-Thompson is transferring to Sacramento State. From the PE:

UCLA redshirt freshman quarterback McLeod Bethel-Thompson has left the school and will transfer to Sacramento State. [...]

With the commitment of Kevin Craft, Bethel-Thompson would have been in a quarterback race that included Ben Olson, Pat Cowan, Craft, Chris Forcier, Nick Crissman and potentially Osaar Rasshan, depending on if he makes the move back to WR or stays at QB.

Good luck MBT. GO BRUINS. -M

UPDATE III: According to Dohn, Craft will have to spend some time in JUCO to maintain his full eligibility, and won't be able to participate in Spring practice:

Kevin Craft, the Mt. SAC QB who gave an oral commitment to UCLA, is a transfer from San Diego State. He must spend a year at a JUCO before he can transfer to a four-year school and maintain his full eligibility. GO BRUINS. -M

Huskies are like jilted lovers, they need to let go and move on

bruinmike88 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:07:18 -0000

The Seattle Times still can't let go of Rick Neuheisel. They're writing a series of articles about the legal problems that plagued the 2000 Rose Bowl winning 11-1 UW team. In doing so, they do their best to put a vicious spin on UCLA's hiring of Coach Neuheisel. They write:

When Turner resigned in December, he lamented how the average fan cares only about wins and losses. "Have I been naive all this period of time? Have I spent all my time working on the student-athlete experience and trying to create better lives for people and our proper place in education, when all I should have been worried about was how many games we won?"

Less than three weeks later, UCLA hired Neuheisel to be its head coach. UCLA's athletic director, Dan Guerrero, said the school was concerned about Neuheisel's history of NCAA violations but figured that was in his past. More relevant was Neuheisel's 66-30 record.

"In the end," Guerrero said, "it was all about 66 collegiate wins."

That first quote is almost Streeter-esque, the kind of thing the Dorrellistas lived for. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, this investigation is rather comprehensive and does show that the program was out of control, but what freaking purpose does it serve to do this eight years after the fact? Seems like the Puppy media is scared that their boy Ty is going to be run out of town by nostalgic fans and are trying to support their boy. For his part, Rick has said this is his dream job and he wouldn't do anything to tarnish UCLA and I believe him. This is just utterly pointless nonsense.

Was 13-9 really worth it?

bruinmike88 — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:35:19 -0000

In hindsight, was our win against SC last year the worst thing that could have happened to our program? Let's take a look at what has unfolded as a result:

Pros:
-We kept our record for the longest win streak in the rivalry.
-We stopped SC from reaching the national championship game where presumably they would have spanked Ohio State.
-We beat SC!

Cons:
-We were stuck with another year of KD hell and made to believe that 2007 would finally be THE YEAR.
-Dewayne Walker became the man who masterminded the biggest win ever (!) and thus indispensable in the minds of the UCLA athletic department and the idiot general fan base.
-Our defense got full of itself and thought they could win games just by stepping on the field, and thus didn't take lesser games seriously, leading to embarrassments like those perpetuated in Salt Lake City, Pullman, and Tucson.

So while it was a huge win for us in terms of the rivalry, I can't see any way in which it improved the long-term health of our football program. In a way, it's the game where Dewayne Walker largely and unbelievably usurped Terry Donahue's status as godfather of UCLA football. Walker firmly entrenched himself within the program and made himself the de facto shot caller somehow, almost purely due to the legacy of that win, and we're going to be stuck with him and HIS CHOICE for head coach (I can't believe I just wrote that) Norm Chow for a long time.

Mandel's Verdict: Dorrell is the Worst Coach In The Country

bruinmike88 — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:52:15 -0000

From the diaries. GO BRUINS. -N

The best national college football writer in the country, in my opinion, comes out and tells it like it is: Dorrell is the worst coach around:

UCLA is officially the worst-coached team in America. OK, Karl Dorrell -- I give up. You win. I’ve given you every opportunity to avoid this designation. I threw Al Groh to the wolves instead of you last summer even though Groh’s perennially middle-of-the-pack Cavs had accomplished no less than your perennially middle-of-the-pack Bruins these past few years. I included your team in my preseason rankings because I figured even you couldn’t screw up a team with 20 returning starters and an ultra-loaded defense. But I’ve gotta hand it to you, Karl -- you’ve outdone yourself this time.

Washington State 27, UCLA 7. Just stare at that score for a moment and try to make sense of it. Granted, it’d seem a lot more bizarre if not for two other scores -- Utah 44, UCLA 6 and Notre Dame 20, UCLA 6 -- that preceded it. Mind you, we’re talking about a team that’s talented enough to have beaten Cal, won 40-14 at Oregon State and be currently tied for second in the Pac-10. But talent alone does not a team make.

I can offer no logical explanation for why UCLA continually fails to show up for certain games (a trend that’s been true throughout Dorrell’s tenure). I find it hard to believe the Bruins simply aren’t "motivated." A possible Pac-10 title and BCS berth provide no shortage of motivation. The reality is, the Bruins are the definition of a poorly coached team, whether they’re going into games with ill-devised game plans or repeatedly making the kind of mistakes good coaches weed out. Of all the coaches on the hot seat right now -- Bill Callahan, Dennis Franchione, Houston Nutt, et. al. -- none has consistently done less with more than Dorrell. (And that’s saying something considering the competition.) Here’s guessing that notion will only be reinforced when UCLA, loser to 3-5 Washington State, turns around and beats 8-0 ASU or 7-1 Oregon in a couple of weeks, just to give its fans another temporary glimpse of what could have been en route to the Sun Bowl. We're officially a total and complete laughingstock if it wasn't the case before, the country looks at Karl Dorrell and finally sees him for the buffoon that he is.

GO BRUINS

Report from today's football practice

bruinmike88 — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 03:55:41 -0000

These observations come to me from a team source who saw today's practice and emailed me these thoughts:

"The QBs were very average, defensive line was superb, like an All-American level. Conversely the o line was shit, so maybe the d line looked good because of the o line being crap or vice versa, I dunno man. The running backs were all injured, but the new guy Ryan Carew looked impressive. Gavin Ketchum also looked awesome. I like our QB's, they can do everything except complete long 35+ yard passes, but in our system I guess that skill is a bonus.

Who's the new coach we got from Nebraska or something, Norvell? Anyway he's real impressive, easily moreso than Dorrell. He looks very smart and is very much in control of the offense.

Well, just thought you'd like a football update, take care man."

Good news about the D-line and Norvell. Bad news about the O-line, but I seriously can't imagine it being any worse than last year myself. Casper the friendly ghost would be an improvement on Robert Chai's ineptitude. Hopefully things improve before the season so we can have an actual viable running game this season. Think of what Markey could do with actual holes to run through.

Hit job on Coach Wooden

bruinmike88 — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 20:14:42 -0000

There is an article up on Slate.com that ludicrously goes to all ends to defame Coach Wooden for no reason whatsoever other than the fact he's sick of the media admiration of him and that Coach is a traditional disciplinarian who refuses to dignify some aspects of the modern game. Excuse me, but is that a sufficient reason to knock on the greatest Coach that's ever lived? He even rehashes the Sam Gilbert stuff while simultaneously referring to Coach's book, "The Pyramid of Success" as a "tour de force of banality". HOW FREAKING OUTRAGEOUS IS THAT??? A MAN PREACHES HIGH MORALS AND VALUES AND ALL OF THE SUDDEN THAT'S BANAL RATHER THAN HONORABLE??? I suppose it's better to embrace the corrpution and immautirity that the modern game is laced with. Tommy Craggs, you are nothing but an irreverent, no-talent hack who should be fired immediately and exposed for the fraud that you are. You have no respect for a living legend, a breathing basketball institution. A man who decency and honor who wants to see the game grow in a positive and moralistic way. That is obviously anathema to any so-called principles that you possess, Mr. Craggs. What a freaking clown.

E-mail bomb Slate.com like crazy for even dignifying this complete and utter bullshit with publication. Make this moron suffer for his idiocy.

http://www.slate.com/id/2155116/

ESPN 710 Lays Into Dorrell

bruinmike88 — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:32:46 -0000

For anyone who was listening to ESPN AM 710 here in LA yesterday around 3 pm, you would have heard Steve Mason and John Ireland (UCLA alum) absolutely eviscerating Dorrell into millions of tiny little pieces. They just absolutely laid into him, calling him, to the best of my recollection, "incompetent", "over his head", and "a mistake from the beginning." After all this, they compared Dorrell to the other coaches who were fired (concluding he is even worse than they are) and pointed out a lot of the galling record that he has accumulated that is quite often referenced on here. And then they proceeded to ponder as to why it seems that our Athletic Department has basically given up on football to focus our efforts and resources solely on basketball. Finally, they challenged Dorrell backers to call in and change their minds, but no one could do so reasonably.

It was a breath of fresh air from the usual crap on sports radio around here, especially AM 570 and the Loose Cannons, who have degenerated into a caricature of themselves from the Wrndell/Hartman days when the show was actually about sports every once in a while and not just extended Lakers pregame with some BS about Vic's poncho on the side.

Glad to see some LA media are getting it about Dorrell and talking about it.

MoJo on fire!

bruinmike88 — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 21:10:10 -0000

Already has two TDs today for the Jags. Reggie who?