Labor Day Weekend: The Texas Transplantation Cultural Experiment

ucla84 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:30:54 -0000

The first in a series of however many reports bad hotel internet service allows me to post from deep in the heart of Tejas.

Some of us just can't handle the thought of no Bruin Football on a Saturday during this most sacred time of the year. Make it opening weekend, and Monday is just too long to wait for college football. It's enough to make a jonesing Bruin seriously consider driving down I-5 for that fascinating San Diego State-Cal Poly tilt...or not. I figured I'd pass on a few notes about how they ball Texas-style over the next few days. I'll look for the Bruin angle where I can.

The itinerary:

Wednesday: American Airlines to Dallas. Greetings from a dumpy airport hotel!

Thursday: Wake Forest @ Baylor

Friday: SMU @ Rice

Saturday: Arkansas State @ Texas A&M

Sunday: Home Sweet Home - passing on Colorado-Colorado State, which woulda been fun, but I didn't want to find myself sitting in a daze on Brookside come noon Monday after a late morning flight from Denver.

Monday: Duh.

About the schedule: Sometimes you eat gourmet; sometimes you eat Hometown Buffet. Consider this schedule a matter of going for quantity over quality, while trying to preserve as much quality as possible. That having been said, there were only two Friday games of note, and the other one was in West Point. While it would have been awesome to see a game there, a two-hour direct flight to Dallas and a chance to visit College Station was too good to pass up.

There's some interesting stuff here, mostly three head coaching debuts and since everything is allegedly bigger in Texas, hopefully some very interesting tailgating. Rest assured, Bruin Blue will be worn in all three stadiums. Rest equally assured that some yokel will ask why I'm wearing a blue Bosox cap at least ten times a day.

Four games in five days, culminating in a trip to the cathedral of college football in Pasadena. ...

ucla84 — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:20:37 -0000

Four games in five days, culminating in a trip to the cathedral of college football in Pasadena. Life is good!

One Bruin's Look At The Fall Scrimmage

ucla84 — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:20:54 -0000

Dunno why, but I figured I'd post my thoughts on a summer's eve at Drake. Oh, and by the way, how sweet was it sitting there watching Bruins play football while looking out at America's most beautiful college campus?

Keeping in mind that, with our offense going against our defense, everything is relative. (In other words, maybe our D isn't as good as it appeared today.) Also, the scrimmage was a typically-vanilla affair - one assumes Skippy was more concerned about whoever Phil Fulmer had sent to Westwood than anything else. That having been said, when the offense outscores the defense 14-9, there's trouble in River City.

Quarterbacks. Yikes! If I knew nothing about this team, I would have concluded that, beyond any doubt whatsoever, our starting quarterback absolutely must be...Chris Forcier. Granted he was going against the 2's, and Craft was going against the 1's, but Craft was brutal for the first hour of a 90-minute scrimmage. On his last couple drives, he sort of got it together, but we can't spend every game waiting around for him to find his rhythm. C-Force, in spite of the fumbled snap, was actually pretty good. He moved the offense somewhat well, and his passes and decisions were generally on the money. Were it not for several drops, one of which caused the INT, his numbers would be excellent.

The last 15 minutes or so went to Prince and Crissman. Prince's vaunted accuracy was nowhere to be found. Crissman looked pretty good, though he was forced to scramble so much, it was hard to tell when he was trying to force a pass and when he was just throwing the ball away.

Running Backs. From the vanilla files: every run looked like it came out of the Dorrell no-deception playbook. Kahlil touched the ball once - otherwise, he was being kept under the radar. Milton Knox doesn't look ready yet, and I'm not so sure about Raymond Carter. Johnathan Franklin, however, is quite ready. Aundre Dean was a revelation - as a freshman, he already reminds me of Kahlil in terms of strength and ability to shake off hits, but here was the best thing I saw: on a blitz, he picked up a linebacker who had a clear shot at the QB and took care of him. He looked like a real pro.

The fullbacks look good. Theriot can do the things that we got used to seeing Pitre do. I was shocked to see Tobi Umodu look good. Coleman is dinged up and didn't see much action.

I'm more worried about our ability to run than our ability to pass. The pass blocking was below average, which made it much better than the run blocking. The o-line was just so horrible that there were no holes opened. Ever.

Receivers. Good news: Marcus Everett looks like himself. Ditto Ryan Moya. Terrence Austin appears to be getting it together - and he's clearly our best return man. Johnson didn't participate. We saw a ton of the freshmen, and they all have something going for them. Moutra appears to be the real deal. I think he's going to have a bigger year than anyone knows. Rosario and Johnson both got open more than I expected - though with more contact at the line, I don't think they would have - but they both missed out on a lot of balls they could have caught. What the attraction to Ryan Graves is, I have no idea.

Offensive Line. I just checked: Chris Forcier is still scrambling. Perhaps we can convince opponents to count to 3 Mississippi before rushing.

Defensive Line. I would stack Harwell and Price against any other tandem in the country. The ends were better than expected, though they were going against our o-line. Havoc was the order of the day, and the d-line was causing it.

Linebackers. Reggie didn't practice, but John Hale filled in quite well for him. When he was a freshman, I thought Hale was clearly set to be the next in the line of Thomas/Chillar/Havner always-making-plays Bruin LBs. I don't know why he melted down the way he did the last two years, but I think he's headed for a huge senior year. The rest look like you'd expect - pretty good, not dazzling, though Sloan and Ayers look promising. With Reggie back, we'll be really good.

D-Backs. The kids are excellent - that includes Viney and Hester, not just Moore. ATV has jumped to yet another level. He made a pick where he simply muscled the ball away from a much bigger receiver. He seems like he now has a physical presence to go with his speed and instincts. Next year, he's an All-American. Given that there was no running game to speak of, the safeties didn't have a lot to do.

Kicking Game. Forbath didn't look very good, but why worry. Perez looks like he's taken another step up - he was phenomenal. (Hate to say it, but we'll need him to be great this year.) I don't know that it's worth wasting a year of his eligibility - especially because he did not look at all good punting - but Locke clearly has a bigger kickoff leg than either Rotstein or Forbath. Given that he takes over for Perez next year, Locke has a lot of work to do. Having not seen Forbath kick off before, I was surprised to discover that Rotstein has the longer leg, if slightly, off the tee. Austin deserves to be our #1 returner on both KOs and punts, but Viney looked good on punts too.

Final note: I stuck my head into Spaulding on the way out. It's been painted in a way that exudes Bruin Pride. Tthe atmosphere around the program has clearly changed. We'll have to see how things go in 16 days, but DeWayne Walker sure looks like the Pac-10's answer to Will Muschamp. He needs to be. Things are headed in the right direction, but either we win a bunch of games 16-14, or this is going to be a very long year.

SB Nation User Blog: ucla84

Labor Day Weekend: The Texas Transplantation Cultural Experiment

Four games in five days, culminating in a trip to the cathedral of college football in Pasadena. ...

One Bruin's Look At The Fall Scrimmage