SB Nation User Blog: ucla84

What I Thought I Saw At The Rose Bowl on Sat Night

ucla84 — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 00:26:43 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS. -N

Why couldn't we have had last weekend's weather this weekend? Here's what I thought of last night's Spring Scrimmage.

A few general observations:

Hearing from Jerry Robinson, Bruce Davis, Terry Donahue and Dick Vermeil during the evening was tremendous. It feels like the entire Bruin family has returned to the fold under Skippy.
We have a defense. A really, really good defense. Yes, the first team was playing against what's left of our already questionable offensive line and a bunch of very young skill guys. However, the talent level, particularly in the back seven, is undeniable. Each defensive unit has a major stud leading it, and Price, Carter and Verner seem to have gotten a whole lot better since December.
Dang, we're young. It won't be unusual this year to see over half of the players on the field be underclassmen. It's not hard to picture ATV taking a play off, leaving us with a secondary made entirely of last year's recruits.
The offense looked okay...just as soon as the 1st string defense hit the bench. I think it was less a matter of incorporating elements of the spread than taking Price, Siewierski, Carter, Ayers, and Verner out of the equation.

Quarterbacks - All we keep hearing is how they'll developing timing and a relationship with the receivers during 7-on-7's. They'd better. Interesting reminder of where we've been: of the three QB's who played at the last spring scrimmage, one is relegated to the Bruin equivalent of Siberia, and the other two are now receivers.

Kevin Prince - He made a few good throws, but most of the time, he reminded me of Drew Olson's early years. He definitely knows how to move, which is always a plus with our o-line, and he seems to throw much better on the run.
Richard Brehaut - For a kid who can't possibly know what he's doing back there, he sure looks comfortable. I wonder if he might be ready sooner rather than later.
Kevin Craft - There's a comic strip character I vaguely recall who has this black cloud over his head that follows him everywhere. Apparently, he now wears #3 and plays quarterback in Westwood. The whole crowd was pulling hard for him, but it seems like, even when he does something good - scrambling 50 yards into the end zone, making a nice pass - something bad - happens. Even his clean handoffs led to subsequent fumbles.

Running Backs - No Christian Ramirez, so there's no way to compare the putative #1 to everyone else, but there were some interesting things.

Milton Knox - Two words: Maurice Drew. Every time he touched the ball, something electric happened.
Derrick Coleman - He looks like Derrick Coleman. If it's possible for a guy to be called "Old Reliable" after one year, he should be the guy.
Aundre Dean - We saw some flashes of the potential we keep hearing about, but he doesn't look like he's put it all together yet.
Johnathan Franklin - We saw plenty of the speed and potential we keep hearing about. I wouldn't play him ahead of Knox, but I'd play him a whole lot.
Raymond Carter - He had one nice run against the third-string D, but whether it's the knee injury or whatever, he's clearly behind the pack.
Tobi Umodu - Yes, Tobi Umodu. He looked pretty good coming out of the backfield - and not just on his one (touchdown) catch.

Receivers - The established players - and that includes Cory Harkey - didn't play much. I'd love to know exactly how many balls got dropped. At least half a dozen times, I found myself thinking, "Taylor Embree would've held on to that." Get well soon, Taylor.

Terrence Austin - We didn't get to see much of him, but he looked great when he was on the field.
Morrell Presley - They were using him as an H-Back. While he's no doubt going to be special one day, right now he's a kid who drops too many balls.
Jerry Johnson - After reading about his being in the doghouse again and again, I was surprised to see him make a number of remarkable plays. For one night at least, he was the best receiver on the field.
Antwon Moutra/Nelson Rosario - We didn't get to see too much of them, but both look really really impressive.
Nate Chandler - Mr. Chandler is bigger than some small condominiums. On a team that needs all the blocking it can get, I'm looking forward to seeing him in the Fall.

Offensive Line - Apparently, we now have one. It's just injured or playing out of position. Here's hoping everyone's healthy by August.

Defensive Line - I barely noticed the ends, which isn't healthy, but that may be more of a reflection of what was going on in the middle of the line. Jerzy Siewierski looks much improved, and frankly, so does Jess Ward. Oh, and so does Brian Price. At some point this year, someone is going to shut Mr. Price down. That will be a very remarkable play when it finally happens. In fact, it will probably be a one-of-a-kind play.

Linebackers - Reggie Carter also looks much better, and again, that's said with full knowledge of how good he's looked when playing in the middle in the past. He should have a huge senior year. Speaking of huge, from the stands Akeem Ayers didn't look as massive as we've read he is. That having been said, he looked like a guy who creates a lot of chaos. He and Carter are going to be a phenomenal tag team. Another guy who made a lot of plays - after doing that on special teams last year - was Sean Westgate.

D-Backs - ATV didn't see the field too much, but on his one interception, he had the play read the whole way, and his runback was vintage ATV. Hester, Dye and Woods all made a few very nice plays and looked exceedingly promising. Combine them with Rahim Moore, and however inexperienced the secondary is, the talent level is just through the roof. Speaking of which, Courtney Viney may be small, but he's hellaquick and he's got a tremendous feel for things.

Special Teams - No Coach Gansz meant no real special teams work, though on one field goal attempt and three extra points, it was nice to see there were no issues with Jeff Locke holding.

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.